Leave the Grave Green

Gemma almost laughed aloud, thinking of it. An exercise in “minimalist living” would be a fitting description of what it had become for her. The flat was basically one large room, furnished with a futon and a few other sleek, contemporary pieces. Cubbyholes along the wall opposite the bed contained kitchen and water closet, and a storage room with a small window had become Toby’s bedroom. The arrangement didn’t allow much privacy, but privacy with a small child was a negligible quality anyway, and Gemma couldn’t imagine sharing her bed with anyone in the foreseeable future.

Gemma’s furniture and most of their belongings had been stored in the back of her parents’ bakery in Leyton High Street. Her mum had shaken her faded red curls and tut-tutted. “What were you thinking of, love?”

A quiet, tree-lined street with a park at its end. A green, walled garden, filled with interesting nooks and crannies for a little boy to hide in. A secret place, filled with possibilities. But Gemma had merely said, “I like it, Mum. And it’s nearer the Yard,” doubting her mother would understand.

She felt stripped clean, pared down to essentials, serene in the room’s black-and-gray simplicity.

Or at least she had until this morning. She frowned, wondering again what had made her feel so unsettled, and the image of twelve-year-old Matthew Asherton came unbidden to her mind.

She rose, put two slices of brown bread in the toaster that stood on the tabletop and went to kiss Toby awake.

Having deposited Toby at her mum’s, Gemma took the tube to Charing Cross. As the train pulled away, the rush of wind down the tunnel whipped her skirt around her knees and she hugged the lapels of her jacket together. She left the station and entered the pedestrian mall behind St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and rounding the church into St. Martin’s Lane she found the outside no better. A gust of north wind funneled down the street, flinging grit and scraps of paper and leaving tiny whirlwinds in its wake.

She rubbed her eyes with her knuckles and blinked several times to clear them, then looked about her. Before her on the corner stood the Chandos Pub, and just beyond it a black-on-white vertical sign said LONDON COLISEUM. Blue and white banners emblazoned with the letters ENO surrounded it and drew her eyes upward. Against the blue-washed canvas of the sky, the ornate white cupola stood out sharply. Near the top of the dome, white letters spelled out ENGLISH NATIONAL OPERA rather sedately, and Gemma thought they must be lit at night.

Something tugged at her memory and she realized she’d been here before. She and Rob had been to a play at the Albury Theatre up the street, and afterward had stopped for a drink at the Chandos. It had been a warm night and they’d taken their drinks outside, escaping the smoky crush in the bar. Gemma remembered sipping her Pimm’s and watching the operagoers spill out onto the pavement, their faces animated, hands moving with quick gestures as they dissected the performance. “It might be fun,” she’d said rather wistfully to Rob.

He had smiled in his condescending way and said, light voice mocking, “Old cows in silly costumes screeching their lungs out? Don’t be stupid, Gem.”

Gemma smiled now, thinking of the photo she’d seen of Caroline Stowe. Rob would’ve fallen over himself if he’d come face-to-face with her. Old cow, indeed. He’d never know what he had missed.

She pushed through the lobby doors, feeling a small surge of excitement at her own entrance into this glamorous fairy-tale world. “Alison Douglas,” she said to the heavy gray-haired woman at the reception desk. “The orchestra manager’s assistant. I’ve an appointment with her.”

“You’ll have to go round the back, then, ducks,” the woman answered in less than rarified accents. She made a looping motion with her finger. “Round the block, next the loading bay.”

Feeling somewhat chastened, Gemma left the plush-and-gilt warmth of the lobby and circled the block in the indicated direction. She found herself in an alleylike street lined with pub and restaurant delivery entrances. With its concrete steps and peeling paint, the stage entrance to the London Coliseum was distinguished only by the increasingly familiar ENO logo near the door. Gemma climbed up and stepped inside, looking around curiously at the small lino-floored reception area.