Pigs Pearls'

Chorus
‘Ladies and Gentlemen’.
Casper’s voice boomed through the opera house and the audience, willing victims had not a chance. They were under the spell; I had seen it happen every night. Each time the sun disappeared below the sheets of the earth and the opera house opened its doors. They flooded in like sheep. Casper’s mouth twitched in a ghost of a smile wicked as a kelpie who lulls you into calm water. And drowns you. He knew it too.
‘I welcome you to my opera house’ the grand velvet words mirrored grand gestures and dark velvet curtains.
‘And employ you to revel’ I mouthed the words along with him. Each night he said the same thing and each night the audience, willing victims had not a chance.
‘In the decadence that is my playhouse’ finished with the arrogant bow that could only be accomplished with the confidence that is two hundred captivated faces staring hungrily at you. Devouring your every, heavy, silken, word.
Tonight the opera house was putting on a production of ‘Midsummer Nights Dream’ a play that many people believe Shakespeare has written. Many people are wrong. Casper is not wrong. He told me of the time when mortals were mere playthings for the gods of dream stuff. That was when the great plays were written. That was the time of the muses. Casper told me how they danced, how after you longed for a muse you never longed for anything else and how after their kisses. Death followed on swift wing. As anything else that touched your lips was a poison. That had been when the plays were written. When people built temples to drama, to comedy and tragedy and worshipped the utter carnal pleasure of seeing actors play for you on a stage as if you were the only god of dream stuff. The spotlight dimmed and the curtains opened for Casper as he walked slowly into the backdrop of the stage. And all you could smell was the polish on the wood and the powder on the faces as the actors backstage heaved as an ocean preparing for the storm.
The stage was empty, it was Casper’s blank canvas, only he held the brushes, his company were the paints. He would drench the stage a midnight blue, he would steep it in crimson, before the night was through.
The audience waited. The stage remained empty. Casper hovered in the wings, breathing the fear of his actors forgetting that perhaps some of it was his own. Again the ghost visited us through a twitch of his lips. He murmured to himself, words form his favourite play and behind him shadowed his primadonna, a chorus girl.
‘Oh ho, the cleverness of me’
Tonight, would be a good performance.


She crept onstage, an animal perhaps straight from the woods painted on the backdrop. Surprised to find there was no way home. Her back bent in a fearful stoop as she nosed her way shaking to the front of the stage. The very front, so far that she teetered on the brink, brushing the wall that separated the audience from the actor. She was dressed in almost clothes. She was Casper’s blue. The lights shone down on her and she was caught in that harsh moment shadows revealing how sunken her skin was, how thin her arms and how frail her bones. Her skin clung to her chest and sagged here and there about her prominent cheekbones. Like Casper she wore a top hat. Like Casper she saw the faces and knew they were under the spell, the old magic of the old theatre.
‘I see it’
She whispered and her voice scraped in her throat as thin and haggard as her body.
‘I see it before me like a sun, too bright to look at and too beautiful to look away from’
She raised a shaking hand and pointed a wrinkled finger towards the crowd. And each member of the audience shifted guiltily in his or her seat as images of their darkest fantasies, lust, and dreams. Bubbled into the plain of consciousness. Black and thick as tar.
‘It is a madness, that burns within you’
She did not accuse. Merely put words to those mouths that could not speak, for fear they let out what thoughts were going through their minds, what secrets. She snapped her head to one side and clasped her face in her hands staring wide-eyed at the audience through spindly fingers. Slowly an insane, unsure grin fixed upon her features. She slid one hand behind her back her focus slipped into the middle distance adding to her expression of madness and ecstasy.
The audience were captivated through a few still squirmed uncomfortably perhaps having more to hide than the rest. More skeletons struggling, tearing and fighting their way to the surface, grinning as they tour away at their hosts insides. She spoke as she revealed her hand from behind her back clutching onto a tiny glass bottle.
‘In my hand I hold. The juice of a flower with petals dark as the falling star, and scented with the sweet decay of the mind, and of time, it is for my master you can feel it too, I have seen it in your eyes. In my palm I hold power. In my palm I hold love. In my palm I hold chaos. And you are terrified’
The audience shivered, the younger ones shrunk back, attempting to sink into their seats. Anything to put a distance between themselves and the chorus girl. Slowly, deliberately and still shaking she offered it out to the victims. Some so totally absorbed that they reached out to grasp it off of her. Then with a jerk, or a spasm running through her body she dropped the small bottle and it shattered into a thousand pieces. The liquid inside still glistening, exploding as it too met the hard stage floor sending up a veil of chocking smoke that shimmered like a thick snow of diamonds until is wavered and dissolved into the air like so much sugar. And she was gone. Disappeared like a thought to the back of the mind.


I remembered I had read the modern version of a ‘Midsummer Nights Dream’ as a child at school. Though still a child, I am no longer at school. I remember also, Casper telling me with quiet a passion that the modern version of ‘Midsummer Nights Dream’ was the only script he had ever torn up. He told me that he had cried when he read it and described the feeling like a loss of a great lover. You see the modern play is nothing like our version. The juice of the flower that Puck alights upon the eyelid of sleeping enemies has but a fleeting role. In our play, the real play. It is both the beginning, and the end.
I found her collapsed on a bench backstage. Eyes closed mouth slightly open; lips curved in her little ecstasy. She, knowing I was there. Ran a tongue over those cracked lips and spoke.
‘I was hungry tonight, I will eat my fill’.
It was good sign. Tonight would be a good performance.


Backstage is not really a backstage; it is the back of the mind. It is the place were imagination is born and it will be the place imagination will go to die. Crawling off the stage on beaten broken limbs. Trailing sad blood, still fresh from weeping wounds. The darkest parts of the mind where ideas are brought bloody and screaming into being. And there is not finer place on this good earth. Backstage is huge. I am still afraid of the darkness that creeps in every night. And of the many doors leading to many places. Beckoning you into their jaws and devouring you. And in the same breath, backstage is small. It is a cramped space were the actors are forced to live, when they are not living on the stage. Where they prepare to live on the stage and celebrate living on the stage. They live for the stage. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone has no choice in the matter. That is not to say though, that we are a happy family. If that is your impression of our situation. You are disillusioned. And greatly so. We are a family indeed and a dysfunctional one. But happy families as Casper says,
‘Are the worst paradox of this century, there is no such thing never will be and those who believe so are disillusioned, and greatly so.’


The cat ran by, carrying a paintbrush in its mouth.Followed by the cat ran by, carrying a paintbrush in its mouth.Followed by the cat ran by, carrying a paintbrush in its mouth, each a little fainter than the one before it.
‘What are you doing Capsilth?’ Capsilth turned, and turned, and turned spat out the brush and scowled uttering in a single voice issuing from many mouths.
‘Perhaps instead of gawking like the fool you are, you can help, master Claudus has managed to put his foot through the scenery for act two. The responsibility now falls to me to fix it; the paints are behind you and be quick about it boy.’
I wanted to see the rest of act one. Already I could hear the rustle of the servants’ rough costumes as they graced the stage with a dance. See through the dim light the king of all he surveyed take his position to begin the story. ‘You have seen this play each night, every night this side of the full moon, you can miss one’ and with that Capsilth picked up the fallen brush and wound his way through the legs of the crowd of all colours. Trailing his echoes as he went. Though I don’t suppose you could name them as such. They are more ghosts. Capsilth is followed by eight shadows. Of himself. If he is still, he is to the passer by, a normal cat. But if he were to stand and walk a pace or two, the passer by would if keen of eye notice that another cat identical to Capsilth had sprung from the ground and pursued it’s master in the exact pattern of steps, only to be followed by an additional cat, slightly fainter. This would occur seven more times, though you would be lucky to see five, as the eighth shadow can only be seen in very clear light, as it is so weak. So I suppose they are echoes, it is Casper’s musing (with a pleasure he reveals) that they are Capsilth’s nine lives, haunting him. Capsilth known to be quiet open about his personal affairs, guards this secret, as it is his only one. Leaving us to imagine. Though this does not prevent him from taunting us every now and again leading us to believe that we are correct in our guesses and then letting slip a detail that fills our argument so full of holes, it would whistle in the wind.
I had seen this play every night it was true, and could probably. If called on. Recite the whole script back to you. If called on.
Weaving through the dancers who are gentry, and the singers who are servants. All of the actors who are masters to the audience who are slaves. There was the stench of sweat building and the roil of people heaved about just behind the curtain. It was a hushed form of chaos of a thousand tongues readying for their queue and the only time they could truly shine. As you got further backstage the actors thinned. It was like walking through a time line of the play, a quick glimpse; a compressed version of the epic to unfold in all its glory on stage. Walking past the creators in act one, the gods of act two and the mortals in act three. Capsilth was both silent and grey, making him a hard mark to follow. And where it not for his echoes I would have lost him some time ago. The pace quickened and the can of paint repeatedly hit my leg, the handle cutting into my hand. It is easy to forget pain, when you are among such company. In such surroundings. No, perhaps not pain. You do not forget pain. For that is what plays are built on. How could you forget pain when Juliet is sobbing for her lost Romeo, as she is driving the dagger into her breast, through her heart? An attempt to carve out her pain, just a curtain call away. How could you forget the pain when Ophelia screams in maddened obsession, throwing her frail body to unforgiving waters that can do nothing but greedily claim it for their own. The pain of loss, the pain of madness, of helplessness. Frilled with pretty words and torn apart on stage by actors, making themselves bleed for the audience with the shards of the shadows of an idea of a writer, long dead. No you could not forget pain. So possibly it is the realisation that you are still mortal? An actor, who plays an immortal, will still die. I remember the first time I saw the chorus girl cut herself. She was laughing with Casper about something of no importance. They were sat on a bench in the wings; the wings were Casper’s second favourite place to be. He said they reminded him of the twilight realm, because if the stage is a dream, the backstage is what dreams are made of and the wings are were dreams are formed. Chorus girl was laughing, a rare occurrence but then again there is something about Casper that brings out the strangest things within a character. Like drawing gold from iron ore.
She threw her hand back, it was just a scratch. A slither of leathery skin torn, but all the same the blood seeped out. She didn’t notice it at first. I did.
I don’t know what I was expecting?
Blue blood? Clear crystal blood? Water? Dust? But no. It was just blood, dull and red. Her smile froze and the heated sparkle that shone in her eyes spluttered and died smothered by her hollow ones. Darting, suspicious and afraid. One by one her teeth disappeared from her smile leaving it a grim slash across her features. Perhaps too the colour would have drained from her face had it not already been white. She slowly raised her wounded hand up to eye level. As if she were again on stage. Her eyes widened and after staring at the tiny amount of blood already crusting on her palm her focus flickered past it to some invisible horror. Slowly, so slowly her muscles shook and she stood, wanting to face whatever it was with at least the façade of bravery. As a man will stand as he is about to be shot, pretending that it is not his fear leaking from every pour, or his piss soaking his leg.
‘I see it’ she began words tumbling fragile from her lips. I recognised the words from a ‘Midsummer Nights Dream ‘. But then they changed.
‘I see it oh god it has come; it chills me to my very soul, colder than the dead yet my heart still beats. I see it before me, before my eyes there, oh goddess, would you be so cruel, oh gods’ the plea was uttered almost silent. Casper had also risen looking on the scene with more intreeg than concern. Other heads had turned as well, mine also to witness this.
‘Be gone! Away from me I banish you’ then the screaming came, shrill and piercing that spread needles across your chest and laid icicles in your very soul, I clamped my hands to my ears surprised that there was no blood as I drew them away. The scream, it was a catalyst to our silence. If we were once transfixed we were no more and the spell or trance was further shaken off as hands grabbed for the collapsing chorus girl offering some softness and resistance to her fall. Tears fell. Splashed down her cheeks in torrents of tiny beads as clear as her blood wasn’t. The feeble beads of red had now flaked into thin lines of brown laced across her palm.
‘Take her to her room and for gods sake calm her, the screaming is not fit for such a place of creativity that favours breeding in brooding silence’ Casper ordered in a loud voice that was well trained on the stage and easily rose above the hubbub demanding every ear to listen. Though they did not stop their tending, the crowd quietened in its fretting and mumblings.
‘It is a shame that it is her voice that the stage holds so dear, no other has chilled me so, oh my mind is cut I am departing and if they ask were Casper is, reply he is mourning the loss of a good mood and the thoughts that accompanied it and can, if he so wishes be found in his quarters.’
With that the two parties left, Casper to the right and the chorus girl and her many hands lifting her limp body over their heads giving the impression that she was floating, to the left and away to her quarters. Casper passed me rubbing his forehead with thumb and forefinger eyes tight shut as if someone had done him a great displeasure. I looked up at him hopefully but he brushed by and didn’t even open his eyes.
Mortality was an unwelcome presence in this theatre. It did not do thinking about it. If the cut had been deeper.


My musings distracted me a little from the cold metal worrying at my leg and palm. And as Capsilth became more agitated he became harder to follow so my concentration was diverted further. I knew my way to the art room, it wasn’t a grand place. Just a room, full of art. Capsilth jumped onto a ledge closely followed by his copies, which looked as if they would knock him off resulting in a pile of grey fur and claws on the floor below. But the echo just merged into his body to be followed by the next until Capsilth was to the eye. A normal cat. The art room wasn’t huge, but it was big enough for what ever you needed. A high vaulted ceiling gave way to empty skylights that lead to the attic. A dark brown of wood replaced the light blue of what would have been sky. A simple chandelier for lighting, and not decoration. Hung from the roof on a long thick chain, it swung slightly on an invisible dream the candles casting sufficient light over the surroundings. The room everywhere was a display of simplistic panelling and practical surfaces, worn down with dips and grooves made by many hands working there. Cuts from knives stripping canvas, splashes of dulled colour scattered their way across the floor and eve a few droplets had escaped their way to the walls. It was not glamorous by any standards, but glamour is a façade. You do not need glamour for art. The room was divided into many sections two main chambers separated by a series of domic columns, creating arches of white stone like bars. Each gap the width of three men stood shoulder to shoulder, no more and not an inch less. Then countless rooms split off from the two main rooms and would have been cut of completely had not their doors been removed, their frames knotted and bruised with the battering of many years of ware. It was in the second main chamber, past the columns that the backdrop for act two was stood.
Capsilth was an amazing painter, bold in his brush strokes and outlines, subtle in his shading. With a particular almost obsessive attention to minute detail. I had once made the mistake of pointing out that a person sat in the back row would not be able to see the shadow cast by an individual leaf, Capsilth had thrown the brush at me in a sudden fury and yelled
‘Fool, that is why you will never be an artist.’ I found no grounds to argue, and decided it best for me to continue painting the sky in moody silence.
The backdrop for act two was woods, enchanted, dark and threatening. Capsilth had not failed to deliver. Each knarled branch, twisted root and grotesque twig leapt out, moved, had a life even though it had been stripped of all leaves and was naked. Swaying ever so slightly in the painted breeze. It would have been magnificent had there not been a hole punched clean through the canvas in the left corner. Leaping down to closer inspect the damage Capsilth cursed before muttering in tones deeper than the forest itself
‘It seems too much for a cat to ask that his work be kept clear of blundering idiots’ he then directed his attention on to me
‘Boy if you ever do something this dim rest assured that you will wish for death before I am through with you, and that her sweet wings come fast before the night is out. that is my only warning.’ At that he went about instructing me on how to repair a torn canvas. It was within his character to depart with knowledge that may or may not be within him possession. The hole was fixed easy enough; I stood back and admired my work. Without a word of thanks, Capsilth then descended upon it with paintbrush and paints, making haste in his preparations of the base layer. Not receiving thanks would have offended me if I had expected any.
It was then that I became aware of a not at all welcoming presence behind me. On turning round I was met by a wild man in all his aspects. Thick matted black hair struck out from his grimy scalp almost long enough to conceal shaggy black eyebrows closely knitted over deep-set eyes. Burning blackened flames leapt from those eyes. His weathered skin spoke of tearing winds, sharp heavy rain, and wide desolate places. The wrinkles carved deep into his flesh were a warning of the turmoil that his soul harboured. As if somehow he had swallowed the desert that had formed him. And in his stomach roiled the tempest screaming, dragging, terrifying and powerful. If I ever I came to blows with this man, which would not be a hard thing to do if you did not conduct yourself with up most caution when around him. I would not dare to stab him for fear of releasing that storm. It is this wilderness perhaps, that makes him also a fantastic artist. He was a passionate man.
‘What are you doing?’ his voice was a growl of a starved dog, his words a blunt object. He was smart, I knew but he hid it by saying only what he needed. I was taken rather by surprise by a sudden streak of mischief that could only and would only have gotten me into trouble. Submitting a polite smile, I replied with an incline of the head.
‘Why art sir, what else would I be doing in such a place?’ to my terror I saw the light of a challenge ignite in his eyes. Though his face didn’t change I regretted what I’d done almost immediately. He descended upon me slowly like a hound playing with a lame rat.
‘Oh yes sir’ he mocked me with the mirror of my smile and nod
‘And such a vagabond as you would understand such a thing as art?’ it was in my foolish nature to return the jest.
‘But of cores, I have as much right to be here as a cat in a dog’s house, I am different sir, but am I not still an animal and belong in an animals abode’ his face darkened
‘Are you suggesting, that not only do you belong, but you are also an individual among us? You are mealy a groundling who fancies him one of the circle, too vain for his place but misfortune would make him too valued to be beaten down. You call yourself a cat sir in an effort to prove you fight those who threaten you, but a rat will fight too if cornered. Though I sorrow at calling you a rodent for even a rodent withholds an intelligence that allows his pride to hide in a hole whilst a dog wanders by. You ‘sir’ do not. That is a pity for you. No I will not beat you for your insolence, but I will be happy in the knowledge that you will be beaten and I will have the satisfaction of the blood not being on my hands nor bruises on my conscience.’ The clash of words had drawn Capsilth’s attention and he slunk over slowly. In masochistic pride I struck back with my knife edged insults knowing if I cut him I would be cut tenfold and I still feared the storm inside.
‘Are you implying that art does not welcome the individual, are you saying that I am not welcome in art? So what pray tell then is art, for I was under the impression that art was the one thing that welcomed individuals. Why art is a kind lady who lends you her talents, sweetly whispering into your ear and guiding your hand across a canvas as a tender lover would across her body. Art is the pair of able hands, able to catch very feelings and dress them for display in great halls of kings. Art makes you shake with wonder and awe and sugared sadness. Art takes your breath right from your throat, for what else could catch the moment when the sun breaks across the hills in a frozen warmth that reaches the coldest of hearts, answer me that?’ I ended my speech proud and sure that that would have proven the man that I was one worthy of this room. He stood still; obviously astounded by my intimate knowledge of something I seemed to know nothing about. I assumed I was safe too early; the sharp bark of a laugh hurt my ears.
‘Spoken like a true romantic!’ his smile was wide and wolfish, ready to snap my neck and devour my head
‘A romantic who would sooner eat a paintbrush than believe it were for paint.’ He laughed like a hyena a twisted and devilish high pitched giggle
‘If art takes you breath it is sure to be your last. If art makes you shake it is with a paling and sickness. If art is able hands then they are able only for stringing you up, pulling the lever to watch your feet jig the dead mans dance. For stripping you naked for all to see in squalid alleyways and ‘sir romance’ if art is a lady she is a godless bitch which needs bedding as many times as she breaths on a spread of broken glass selling herself to the highest bidder!’
Oh I wish I could say how the blood rushed to his cheeks in rage and how his voice tremmered the windows with thunder. But it stayed at the level you would use when addressing an arrogant child. Paled at this onslaught I opened my mouth for what surely would have been the final sentence of a short-lived life but Capsilth interrupted
‘If you feel like uttering one more word, I would advise you cut out your tongue just so the fancy does not become so great and there is not helping it. I have no doubt that it will serve as more healthy in the long run.’ I bit my lip and cursed under my breath
‘No you are not an individual, nor an artist and you are not welcome here’ with that, he forgot that I existed and turned further into the art room. I exited tail, regardless of whether it belonged to rat or cat, tightly between my legs. I itched to get back to the stage, or at least behind the stage. Still musing over what had possessed me to have challenged that man. Though I wasn’t sorry.


I wandered aimless through the many corridors not bothered about the time or the fact that I was missing the play. I had missed the beginning. That was the most important. Even though I had seen the play start and end countless times, I knew, it just couldn’t be the same if I had missed the beginning. I wondered were Claudus was, I laughed as I entertained thoughts of scolding him for what he had done to the backdrop of act two and for depriving me of my play. But as Claudus was at least six feet taller than I, a quick dancer and hard fighter, they were nothing but thoughts and I was happy and safe in that knowledge.
I found him in a small room; door open wide, lit with warm candles fastened to the walls by elegant holders, bathing everything in a golden glow. As I walked in I was consumed by the heat and smell of men.
He was drinking with three of his closest companions. Though each would have stabbed the other in the back for another bottle, it did not sway their friendliness to one or the other, laughing rowdily the drink heightening their already boisterous spirits.
‘Claudus, you drunkard! I would shun seeking company with Capsilth if I were you, though I am thankful that I am not, seeing as he has only your untimely death to bring a smile to his lips at present’ I shouted above their uproar. Claudus turned towards me, his lean face handsome in a way that was impossible to put a finger on; perhaps it was down to the fact that he was surprisingly, quiet ugly under close inspection. His nose was too long and too big for his slender jutting cheekbones, his skin too marred with acne left over from an unimaginable childhood, his ears too big, his chin too sharp and at the current time, his cheeks too red in merriment. Sweat glistened on his wide forehead. ‘Ah boy, you could never be me, not in a thousand moons and a thousand more, you may wish it to be so but you have more chance bedding a goddess than you do of being me, for they are all married to me.’ His audience laughed and raised their bottles to his drunken banter.
‘I owe you nothing Claudus, I ask you remember, it was I who spent the hour mending what you destroyed, but I am a good man and I can forgive, I did not need to warn you’ this sort of thing was nothing, I knew that Claudus enjoyed to argue and I liked him for reasons, like his looks probably lay in the fact that he was not a very likeable man.
‘Hark at him who calls himself a man!’ shouted Miriam,
‘Capsilth with whiskers and all is more a man than you!’ a remark that was met by a cheer from the other two, though not from Claudus, who’s temperament turned as quickly from light jollity to a seriousness that could only be harboured by those who were drunk, as fast as a spring day turns into a thunderstorm.
‘You who have the title of a woman has no fight with my boy, leave him be or I shall take those false words and cut your throat with them’ he warned and Miriam who was dark in skin and mind and mood stood to meet Claudus’s eye and challenge. Both men tilting slightly on their unstable feet began to circle the other.
‘I have a title of a woman, as I am man enough to have one and still steal your bitch whilst you are making love to the stage, vein love I might add, as she will never love you in return’ Claudus who was taller than Miriam smiled
‘You could not make love to a woman if she were Aphrodite herself, in her lusting naked form and full breast, you could no more pleasure her than a knat could pleasure her, and he is I might add, larger than you will ever dream of being.’
‘My sword is larger than yours by any account, and unlike you poor fellow I have strength enough to wield it and do much damage to those who harbour love, making lust flow as much as their virgin blood’
Claudus stopped dead and remarked quiet plainly
‘You sir, are mad!’
Miriam licked his lips with a mad glint in his eye exalted
‘As a fox! Who hunts such foul as you are, in both body and conduct’
‘You are not one to talk about conduct’ retorted Claudus
‘You of a thousand brawls as necessary as sugar on honey, you of a thousand fleeting fingers who would steal the moon if he could and not weep with the lovers for it’s loss’
Miriam bit his thumb at Claudus who exploded into huge laughter
‘And you would attempt to bastardise the great works to settle a petty fight between us, you are compensating, I beseech you use your own wit, I find it more satisfying to tear you down for being your own idle self, and not for hiding behind something you could not understand let alone create’ Miriam stood now hands jauntily on his ever so slightly rounded hips replied
‘You call me idle but I have accomplished more in my life than you, misguided companion of mine, if you could see past your nose you would surely see that’ Again Claudus laughed openly at him a grand smile displaying sharp slabs of yellowing teeth and a tongue stained red with wine
‘You call yourself a dancer! oh comedy strike me dead for I will hear nothing funnier than this, how can you dance? You were born with a clubfoot; your mother had not the mind to keep her fancies away from the passing villain, I bet my life your father never had her maiden head!’ Miriam spat at his opponent
‘I will dance well enough on your grave’ Claudus knocked Miriam down with one blow, he being slighter than Claudus flew like a bird into the wall and slumped down it bleeding from a split lip and crooked nose. The lights beat down on us from the faucets in the walls, too many flames were alight with the tension of the fight and it made the air heavy with heat. Suddenly Miriam burst into a rich laugh that grew from deep inside of him, an honest one.
‘Aye Claudus, you punch as well as you dance, now help me up before I die here, it is too comfy for my liking’ he held out his hand which was grasped firmly and yanked up
‘You are as much a fool as your words are sharp, but what is a jest between blood brothers, more wine I say a toast, a toast to boys, and men and cats and that bitch of a mother who brought you into this world’ this proposal was met with a great sloshing of red that slopped and splashed about like the blood that was almost shed. After the toast it was downed and replaced with more until if you were not drinking you could have gotten drunk from the air. Claudus had his arm around me and his shirt, damp and musty clung to me as well, the smell filled my head. My suspicions that he had forgotten that I was even there were confirmed, as he happened to glance down, spotting me he recoiled with an exaggerated look of shock on his features as the others roared.
‘Strike me down, it has slipped my mind why you are even her, shouldn’t you not be with your love? Here, give me that! Who gave you that?’ Claudus snatched away half a bottle of wine from my reluctant grasp, I couldn’t remember how it had gotten there, I just recall my having acquired it.
‘Why boy are you here? Have you a message for me? stand tall and deliver it then! Make haste.’ I smiled and nodded to each man
‘No sirs I have no message, I will take my leave of you’.
Walking out of that room was like hitting a brick wall of cold air, my cheeks burned and I felt dizzy, only for a moment. Then I decided that it would be a good idea to think about where I wanted to go next. Claudus would find out how angry Capsilth was on his own I was sure of that.


I had lost my lust for the stage completely and did not wish, even to take one more step lest it lead me towards my fickle mistress. I have my suspicions that it was the drink that had brought me into this mood that was so unlike my norm, but I was far too drunk to notice it. I sat down were I stood, slumping like some bum against the wall that was hard and cold against my back as much as it was an unattractive yellow in colour. There is never really anything to do with yourself during a performance, for you should, being an obedient slave to the ever hungry muses, always be onstage, or getting ready to go onstage, or just coming off stage. I had never been either of those things and contented myself as a drunk does with sitting and falling asleep, or waking and laughing at ones self. It was in the former state that I was found, by Madame Iris who smelt of oranges and sweat and powder, and who wore a dress that any brothel dog would have been proud of. It was a rich deep musky scarlet, ribbed with whalebone that formed a strong corset laced with thick cream frills framing and hugging tight to her ample breasts that had seen at a guess at least five children. It was laced with golden thread, woven about the front of the corset in a plain fashion as not to distract from her face or bosom. It curved closely about her stomach that was not large, but not flat, and her hips that spoke of muscle earned from hard work turned to flesh and fat after discovering an easier life. The corset ended and there exploded from it heavy curtains of the same dark scarlet, pinned here and there so that it revealed petticoats not of thin lace but of the same weighty material, but in a dun gold. It must have been a great task to wear it all day and half the night, but it was all she ever wore, and I suspect that it was all she had ever had. It went to show how strong she was, stronger than most of the men in this company she boasted when in the drink herself. She was not as pretty as the dancer girls that Claudius and Miriam sniffed after, and she was not homely, for I doubt that she ever had a home. But she was no doubt attractive and very much so, though she had no taste for the men preferring the heroine of out merry troop, who was as opposite to her as a mortal could be and with whom she shared a room with and had done for many years even before I had come to this theatre. No one thought any thing of it, apart from perhaps ********** the conductor, how had taken a liking to her and was heart broken when it was pointed out to him that the goings on within their quarters was not wholly innocent.
As she leaned her curled hair fell in dirty blonde rivulets over her shoulders and into my face and she smiled fully and honestly smearing the scar of bright red lipstick across her features. A little powder trickled down from the shallow wrinkles lining her eyes as they creased with the grin. Her breath was sweet but her teeth were in poor health in those pink gums of hers. And she pretended to be angry.
‘Shame on you young jester, for getting so squiffy so early into the performance, why only old ****** has raided the wine fields this early in the night, and he was put into an early grave! Though mind you that was a tumour, but it was one of the throat so I have no doubt that it was the evil of the drink that caused it, or agitated it, or whatever it does to your body. I am no doctor, but I do know that he’s dead and I also know that you will be too if Mister Capsilth catches you here, and in a state like this no less! He has already had Claudius’s head tonight and he hungers for more. Oh I have never seen such a foul disposition on a cat, nor such delight taken out of the ordering of other persons about.’ I was happy to let her ramble and keep myself to my own thoughts; she was not one that I feared. I watched the profusely laid rouge dance on her cheekbones as she spoke.
‘Up with you then, I shan’t let you be taken by the lion tonight, and you shall owe me then, a favour for your favourite’ she let out a small laugh, kissed me on the fore head like a child and then lifted me up as if I were nothing more than a sack of feathers and hefted me down the corridor.



Their room was large, as you were allowed a large room if you were more than one person and Madame Iris and Titania were exactly that. Everything had a low centre of gravity in that room, tables huddled close to the deep carpet as if scared that if they were any taller, they would stick to the ceiling, or be whisked away by a non existent wind. There were no chairs but long low sofas that seemed to have mislaid their backs for one large armrest. I never managed to remember what they were called and in my current state it was a miracle I could remember who I was.