Some more of the story I'm writing... this fits itself in right after my piece called "Resignation". The two halves of this are supposed to be in the same chapter, but there is a bit missing between them which I haven't written yet. I'm wiritng in a strange pattern, where I've divided the plot into 1000 word chunks, and I'm writing them at random. I wrote both of these on the train from work, and they're just first draft. The character "Daniel" is the narrater of the 2nd half, and "Cameo" of the first half. Please note I'm from the UK so if you see any funny words/spellings they are likely not to be typos. Between these two chunks of story I'm going to insert a few more chunks about a couple of dates the characters go on and some conversation. Any comments, impressions, opinions would be fantastic!
***
Amberline had been right all along, though I hated to admit it, and to finally talk to Daniel like the woman I should be took a great deal of courage. First I thought he’d find me ridiculous, laughable even. Or maybe he’d be insulted, maybe he had never been interested at all, and it was all a fantasy belonging to the vanity of my imagination? And then I stopped, comb in hand in front of the mirror, and looked at myself. If he could have seen me when he met me first, what would have gone through his mind? My skin was so anaemic these days, my eyes ringed with dark circles, so amount of clever make-up application could completely hide. My cheeks pinched and gaunt, from that feeling of hunger I’d put aside all my life. I was black and white, like a silhouette.
I arrived at the One Eyed Cat early, and selected a small table by the window, in case I saw him and changed my mind, decided my courage had only been a figment of my imagination, a ghost emotion provided for by a ghost’s advice. But when I finally saw Daniel, I felt nothing but relief. My heart pounded like a trapped bird, but my head felt washed over with a cool wave. I called over a waiter, and ordered a pot of coffee for the two of us. When Daniel arrived, I met him at the door, and put my shaking hand in his.
“Is everything all right Cameo? Has something happened,” he worried, as I led him to our table, and then smelling the strong coffee, grinned a guilty grin,
“God that was a good idea, you’ll have to forgive my manners, I had such a late one last night!” He dives straight for the cafetiere, and loads about five sugars in his small cup.
“A good show?”
”Oh the usual, the usual show, nothing how it was when you were around, nothing like the audience shows up these days,”
“I’m sorry, have I ruined your reputation?”
”Not at all… John never emerges from backstage other than to slip his opium dealer a few wads of cash, but nothing much has changed for me. The show is different of course, we can’t call it The Ghostlight anymore, people only complained and said it wasn’t right now you were gone…”
Daniel drinks his coffee down in one, and reaches for another before his cup is even down on solid ground. On realising he still hasn’t listened to my reply, he stopped himself,
“And are you all right? I’m not used to seeing you before noon.”
“I’m all right Daniel, to tell you the truth, I wanted to apologise to you,”
***
After I lost my sight, I felt like in some way I was freer than I had ever been. I felt free from my father’s expectations of me, he saw me now only as a failed and broken man, or if anything, not really as a man at all. I felt free from the constraints of trying to follow a career I could never succeed in, and now with only a little more practice and determination could I really excel musically, in the way I had always dreamed of. I was free from the war, and returned home, permanently. I was free from my unhappy marriage, as when I found three weeks after I was returned, like a broken parcel returned to sender, my wife had taken all the gifts I had lavished upon her, and left me to go back to her family.
I was freed from all of my constraints, and while this may have driven many men before me into depression and madness, I finally felt as though I was in control of my life.
Of course I had regrets. These days I mainly regretted that I could not look on Cameo’s face. Understandably, beauty was no object to me, simply a form of vain expression to ensure that other people saw me in a favourable light, and in some cases to invoke their envy. As much as I would have loved to see her features, beautiful as I imagined them, it was the simple fact that I could not see her expressions that unnerved and worried me. In fact, the closer we became, the more it worried me.
Most people were easy to read, their voices telling a separate and deeper story than their words, and more than they would like to admit to, but Cameo always said what she felt she should say, and no more, and if she was ever lying, she was a good actress and I had no way of knowing any difference. If her face was what betrayed her, then it was all lost on me.
