Gravitate (17 page)

The lights switched off, and then a spotlight cut through the darkness, inching its way acr
oss the stage to where I stood.
Once it was focused on me, it blocked out everything in front of me, leaving me free to imagine that Donna wasn’t there, that the whole room was empty and
I was just singing for myself.
The music started, a sultry, jazzy melo
dy filling the space around me.
I lost myself in the song, feeling every word, thinking of Marty, wanting t
o share in my character’s hope.
Like my relationship with Marty, I tried to make
each moment of the song count.

There was just si
lence after I finished singing.
I wai
ted for Donna to say something.
Finally, her voice cracked through the speakers, she sounded odd.

“That was… that was satisfactory.” I thought I heard a sniffle from Donna.

“How can I improve it?”
There was a pause.

“Be able to do that in front of everybody,” her voice cracked, “and you might not be the wor
st Lydia Mill
s in history
. Do it again.
I want to check it wasn’t a fluke.”

She put the music on again.
I repeated the emotions, the vulnerability and power o
f the words pouring out of me.
At the end of the music, I stood and waited, my heart pounding from the intensity of my
singing.
There was just silence.

“Donna?” I started to feel uneasy.

“You can go.” Donna didn’t come out of the tech box, but
turned the full lights back on. I jumped.
Marty was standing at the b
ack of the studio, by the door.
I’d been so involved with my song that I didn’t even hear the door o
pen.
I grabbed my bag and ran over to him.

“How long have you been here?” I whispered.
I wasn’t sure what Donna’s view was on friends coming to watch rehearsals and I didn’t need another reason for her to cut me down.

“Long enough to see your amazing pe
rformance. That was something else.
You made your lecturer cry – that’s why she hasn’t come out yet.”

“How do you know she’s crying?” The tech box had one-way glass – she could see us, but we couldn’t see her.

“I can see her.”

I raised an eyebrow. “I won
’t ask.
Let’s go home.”

We headed off for home.
It was dark outside, and it felt as th
ough winter was almost upon us.
Our breath hung in frosty clouds in front of our faces, as we briskly walked the few minutes back to our house.

He unlocked the front door, always q
uicker than me to find his key.
I stumbled into the doorwa
y and he caught me in his arms.
I kicked the door sh
ut and melted into his embrace.
I was home.

“What did you mean by – you could see Donna – can you see through the one-way glass?” I couldn’t resist asking.

“I could, but I can also see her sadness – she had big dreams and she didn’t get them.”

“How do you know?”

“I overheard her talking after one of your lectures, as we were walking awa
y. She was talking to herself.
Wishing she cou
ld have her time again.”
He looked sad too.

“Is that why she picks on all the students?”

“It’s a part of it.
She’s jealous, she’d
rather be on the stage herself. Enough of her, what about you?
That song was amazing – you really moved me.”

“Thank you.
I was thinking about you while I was singing.”

He held me close. “I know.”

He kissed me.

While we waited for our dinner to cook, I showed Marty the rehearsal sched
ule that Donna had handed out.
It was going to take up a considerable amount of time and I would have quit the production in favour of spending that time with Marty, if I didn’t already k
now he wouldn’t let me do that.
Donna had unrealistic expectations of the amount of time her students could dedicate to her show and she wanted to complete the rehearsals and stage the show
in an unacceptably short time.
In my somewhat limited experience, most shows took a few months to rehearse and perfect and she had all
otted only a handful of weeks.

“I’m hardly going to see you,” I moaned.

Marty put an arm
around my shoulders.
“I’m sure if I talk to Donna, I can arrange to watch rehearsals – after all, I can’t imagine she’d be happy for her leading lady to be walking home from these late night rehear
sals, in the dark, on her own.
Anything could happen to you.”

I smiled. “I’m not sure that even you could persuade her to let you watch rehearsals.”

“I can be very persuasive,” he kissed me gently, “when I want to be.”

“Oh, I know you can!” I smiled.
“You can’t use the techniques you use on me with Donna though!”

“I can use the technique I used on your aunt.”

“What do you mean?” I felt surprised, yet not really worried – I knew Marty would never do anything to hurt Aunt Sandra.

“I shouldn’t really tell you this, but then I’ve told you lots of things I shouldn’t have told y
ou.
Angels have ways of making things happen so
that we can complete our task.
I needed to convince your Aunt Sandra that I was the r
ight person to share the house.
I arranged for the other students to find accommodation, so that I would be the only opt
ion.
And then when I met her, I charmed her.”

“Charmed?” Somehow, I couldn’t be angry with him.

“It’s a term we use – no real magic is involved, it’s more of a trance really – I can stare into someone’s eyes and make them trust me, agree with me, do what I want them to do.” Marty
paused. “Well, normally I can. It didn’t work on you.
You’re the only person I’ve never been able to charm.
  Not in my usual way, anyhow.”
He stared into my eyes again.

“Are you doing it now?” I stared back at him.

“I am.” His gaze was fixed.

“What are you trying to do?” I couldn’t look away.

“I’m trying to get you to do somethin
g.” His eyes were breathtaking.
I had no idea of what he wanted me to do, but I desperately wanted to please him, so I kissed him, thinking that was a good bet of what he might want me to do.

“Was that what you wanted me to do?” I looked at him hopefully, but saw defeat in his eyes.

“No, well, yes, I always want you to kiss me, but I was trying to charm you into picking up the wine bottle and refilling your glass.”

I laughed.
“Sorry
, I didn’t pick that up at all.
Why can’t you charm me?”

He sighed. “I have no idea.
It has never worked on you – even
before I fell in love with you.
Perhaps that is why I was so attracted to you – I knew you wouldn’t love me jus
t because I wished it to be so.
If you fell for me, it would be your own choice, without any interference from me.” He reached for the wine bottle and refilled my glass automatically.

“And I do.”

“I know,” he smiled. “It means everything to me.”

“Marty, there’s a couple of other things I’m curious about,” I
smiled and he rolled his eyes.
“Can I ask you about them?” I stared into his eyes.

“It’s almost like you’re charming me – I can’t seem to do anything but give you what you want.” He reached ove
r and gently caressed my face.
“I’d do anything for you; even answer all your questions.”

I closed my eyes and savo
ured the feeling of his touch.
He’d almost managed to distract me from m
y questions.

“When you said about making people forget – how does that work?”

“Please remember that I have never done this maliciously, it’s just a part of getting a task completed without anybody finding out what I am.”

I nodded and placed
my hand on his. “I understand.
I just want to know how it happens.”

“I look the person in the eye, think about the information I wish to erase from their memory and then I emit a beam of light into their eyes, which wipes the information. The light isn’t visible to
human eyes, so nobody notices.
Then, I think of what I want to replace the information with – usually, I picture a brick wall, so that nothing comes back to them.”

I had a moment of recollection – he’d done this to me – this was why I couldn’t remember the names of his referees w
hen he applied to live with me.
This was why the receptionist at the hospice couldn’t remember the hospital he had previously worked at.

“You did that to me – when you first interviewed to live here.”

“I’m sorry.” He snatched his hand out from under mine and put his head in his hands. “I would never have done it if I’d known how things would turn out.”

“It’s OK, I understand.”
In my head, I pictured myself ripping down that wall, brick by brick, the cement holding the bricks in place crumbling under my fingers.

“Other angels have probably done it to you in the past and
you wouldn’t have noticed.
Have you ever had déjà vu?”

I nodded, still fixated in my head on the imaginary bricks tumbling down around my ankles.

“That’s sometimes an effect of an angel erasing a tiny part of your mind. You see the moment in a reflection of the erased memory.”

“Susan Berry and Kim Ashman.” I blurted the words, with no
idea of why I was saying them.
My hand flew up to my mouth in shock.

There was silence in
the kitchen for a few moments.

“Claudia, how did you do that?” Marty looked stunned.

I realised what I’d just said.
“Those are
the names I couldn’t remember.
The
names you erased from my mind.”

“Yes, they are. How did you do that?
I removed it from your mind – the
knowledge isn’t there anymore.
You shouldn’t have been able to do that.” Marty looked pale.

“I pictured myse
lf ripping down the brick wall.
The names were behind it.”

“Impossible.” Marty shook his head.

“That’s what I did.” I was whispering now, but I didn’t know why.

“I removed the informat
ion.
Exactly the same way I wou
ld for anyone else. This isn’t possible.” His eyes searched my face.
“I don’t understand how you did that.”

“I don’t know what to say.
The words came to me after I
imagined ripping down the wall.
I tried to think of them the other day and couldn’t remember them at all.”

“That’s as it should have been. Unbelievable.
It’s like you’r
e becoming immune to my powers.
I wonder if it’s because I’ve fallen for you and now I don’t
wish to hide anything from you.
I just
can’t explain it any other way.
Even so, the knowledge sho
uldn’t have been in your head. It was removed.”
He looked like the rug had been pulled out from underneath him and he
was shaking his head slightly.
I so desperately wanted to make it better.

“Does it
matter?
If you’re not planning to erase any memories, or hide information from me?” I gesticulated with my hand to my head and, in doi
ng so, I knocked my wine glass.
Marty’s hand steadied it, before I’d even realised what I’d done.

“Nothing matters but you.” He smiled and looked more like his usual,
composed self.
“Go on then, what was your other query?”

“Well,” I had a quick sip of my wine, “you said that angels don’t use wings to fly and that som
e angels don’t even have wings.
I just wondered why some angels did have wings – if they serve no purpose, why are they there?” I felt stupid asking these questions, but the more I thought about the things he sa
id, the more I wanted to learn.
I was intrigued, not only about Marty, but a
bout the whole angel situation.
Now that I knew it was real, I wanted to know everything he could tell me.

“Oh, the wings serve a purpose, for those that have earned them.” His eyes shone with tears.