The Director slowed to a halt and Laura felt plush drapes stroke her shoulders. A shove to her back sent her staggering forward, feet unsteady in a chaos of fabric. Brightness bathed her and the thunder that roared in her ears gradually resolved into applause.
She was on the stage.
The faces, hands and pale shirts of the audience hovered in a darkness held back by a row of glaring footlights. Laura felt their expectant gaze on her like an unbearable, demanding weight. She stood frozen, the barren expanse of stage before her gleaming.
Some distance behind stood the cardboard facade of an ancient Greek temple. As music rose like a mist from the orchestra pit she noticed movement in the wings on the far side. The usher, peaked cap still perched on his head, was buttoning a ruffled shirt. He straightened, brushed the cap to the ground and strode onto the stage. Applause swelled. He positioned himself on the far side of the temple, turned to the audience and with a majestic sweep of his arm began to sing.
The usher's bass voice throbbed with melodrama and yearning. His Latin rose trembling above the music and floated out into the darkened tiers of the audience. Laura began to back away, her head light with pain and confusion. Before she was completely hidden by the wings, a pair of hands clapped onto her shoulders and she twisted around in a flurry of skirts. The Director hissed, furious, and made to push her back out.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
She wanted to yell, to claw at his craggy face, but as panic fought in her chest, the oppressive weight of the watching audience slowed something inside her. She was pushed back onto the stage, staggering into the hot lights. The pain in her ribs soared.
The usher sang on. He punched the air in defiance, sending shivers of emotion through the ruffled fabric of his shirt. Laura gazed, overwhelmed, at the audience.
As her eyes came into focus on the sea of vague faces, a familiar form emerged-Markus sat in the stalls, a dozen rows from the stage. Laura squinted against the footlights. She could just make out his proud, puzzled features. He had recognised her. Time crawled, then stopped. A woman younger than Laura leaned towards him and crooned into his ear. He turned and Laura lost him in the crowd as his raven hair obscured his face.
Laura peered, frowning. The light in the theatre was so very poor, mere dregs spilling from the stage. Her heart leapt in its cage; she must have mistaken another man for her faithless lover because there he was, Markus, sitting two rows further forward. His eyes were fixed on the wildly gesturing usher but when they settled on Laura he brought a hand to his mouth in shocked recognition. The woman on his arm cocked her head inquiringly but Markus simply shook his head, agape.
As the woman leaned closer, the broad rim of her hat hid his face and Laura realised that Markus was, in fact, seated much further to the right. His elbows were propped on his knees and he was staring incredulously in her direction, ignoring the woman stroking his arm.
Laura blinked. Markus sat in every row. His high forehead and bold jaw encompassed myriad expressions of astonishment. All through the theatre, Markus pointed or gasped in surprise. The women accompanying him whispered and nuzzled, intent on his attention.
The usher drew a colossal breath and his voice mounted incredible intervals to glide into the climax of his aria. It was clear he had not noticed the Markuses. Laura threw a glance at the Director. The portly man was frowning, one hand raised to the wall near his head. As she met his gaze he wrenched a great lever downwards, stepping aside to slam it into place. Laura looked into the audience to see Markus bend forward and hair fall over his face. Frantically, she searched the theatre but he was gone. The women were gone. Beyond the footlights was nothing but a chasm of empty chairs.
Her ears rang as the usher's singing continued to reverberate from the stage.
"Theatre is everything, pretty one," said a quiet voice.
Laura spun. The usher stood beside her with his mouth twisted in a superior sneer. Blood had smeared from his hands onto the ruffles of his shirt. He reached out.
"Don't touch me," hissed Laura, backing towards the set. The final lines of the usher's performance formed themselves in the air, his voice building in volume and passion above them as he stood, mute, regarding her. She stumbled to the rear of the stage.
"Run," he called softly under the singing. "Run. You might get back to the beginning, but you won't get further than that."
"Don't touch me!"
He stood without even reaching a hand towards her.
The deadening mass of the audience had lifted. Laura heaved herself up the stairs to the temple's cardboard columns. She pounded her fists against the painted image of the temple interior. The paper tore, the thick smell of incense flooding through the rent in the backdrop. She collapsed to her knees and crawled through.
The ground felt like stone under her fingers as Laura dragged herself blindly forward. The disembodied song of the usher had been cut off, as if by the slam of a door, and nothing disturbed the new silence save her shallow panting. Sagging with exhaustion, she looked up.
The temple stretched on all sides as far as Laura could see-a vast array of stone pillars interspersed with statues clothed in similar gowns to her own. Behind her was an enormous painted landscape, torn where she had crawled from the stage. From the painting emanated a dazzling, midday light that flooded the temple floor. The ceiling was lost in a haze of fragrant smoke.
One of the statues detached itself from the collection and approached her. It was the matron. The monkey, which had shed its uniform elsewhere and now wore only its cap, clambered down from one of the pillars and leapt onto her shoulder. A finger of smoke reached down momentarily in its wake.
"What is this place?" asked Laura, her voice hoarse. She rolled over, wincing, to sit limply on the floor with the mass of skirts splayed before her.
The matron bent over, near enough for Laura to make out the fine wrinkles that clustered around her eyes and the lines of scab that made up her lipstick.
"This is where we belong," she said.
"I need to get out."
The matron straightened with a peal of laughter that sent the monkey pouncing from her shoulder, shrieking. It landed softly on the floor and bared its teeth at Laura before scampering away among the pillars with its tail stiff overhead.
"Get out? You've only just arrived," said the matron.
"I can hardly breathe," pleaded Laura. "Help me."
The matron's eyes frowned in her powdered face.
"Why do you want my help? I'm no better than you. Perhaps even a little worse." A flourish of her hand indicated her painted face and she bent forward again.
"Escape is no secret," she said, her cracked and scarred lips shaping the words in a low voice. "You need only take off your costume."
Laura reached around her drawn waist and fumbled for the ties of the bodice. She could feel the lines of cord that crossed her punished torso but where the redundant length should have been tied there was nothing. The cords reached their final eyelets and seemed to dive into the fabric of the dress. Her breath quickened, straining her lungs against the crushing pressure on her ribs and belly.
"Not so easy?" The matron's voice rang above her like a bell.
Still sitting, Laura leaned forward and pulled up the heavy linen of her skirt. A mound of silk petticoats rose from underneath. She dragged these back towards herself in desperate handfuls and uncovered the tulle ruffles of her underskirts. The stiffened gauze scratched at her arms as she gathered these up, reaching over a growing pile of fabric.