Michele Forbes - Ghost Moth

The muted strains of conversation, which she became aware of as she approached the ladies’ dressing room, came to a sudden halt as she opened the door. Inside the room, a small group sat huddled together in near darkness. Cissie McGee, three of the Cigarette Factory Girls, Miss Harper, and Rosemary Wylie all lifted their heads and simultaneously turned to Katherine as she stood in the doorway. There was a ring of tension in the air. Rosemary Wylie swung around on her chair and began busily applying blusher to her cheeks, despite only being able to catch a shadowy image of herself in the mirror. Cissie McGee smiled broadly at Katherine but said nothing. The Cigarette Factory Girls stared blankly at one another biting their lips, and Miss Harper stood up briskly, as though she had just thought of something elsewhere in the building that needed her urgent attention.

“How can you ladies see in here, it’s so dark?” Katherine said, switching on the overhead light. The sudden illumination of the room startled the women. Katherine threw her coat over the back of her chair and placed her handbag beside the little box of makeup on her designated area of the table.

“All ready for tonight, then?” Cissie McGee said in a rush to her.

“Well, I will be,” Katherine said.

“Any alterations needed?” Miss Harper’s voice rose to a tiny squeak.

“No, I don’t think so,” Katherine said, looking from one face to another.

“Right, then,” continued Miss Harper, moving toward the door, “I’ll be off to check on the gentlemen.”

Katherine sat down in front of her wall mirror to apply her makeup. The other women remained silent. She pulled her hair back from her face and tied it neatly with a ribbon. The women were staring at her.

“Is there anything wrong?” she said finally, perplexed at their behavior.

Rita, one of the Cigarette Factory Girls, was the first to speak. “You haven’t heard, then?” Rita asked warily.

“Heard what?” she replied. There was a moment’s silence only, for Rosemary Wylie could not stop herself.

“They say it was an accident, but that tailor fella, Mr. McKinley — his body was found in the Lagan this morning.” She delivered the news with a keen, rehearsed despair in her voice, but her eyes betrayed a simmering, voyeuristic expectation. Rosemary Wylie stared at Katherine and waited, as though waiting for a sign, any sign at all, to confirm the suspicions that Katherine and Mr. McKinley had been having a liaison. The frantic distraction with which Rosemary Wylie had applied her blusher had given her one big red cheek.

“Isn’t it shockin’?” Cissie McGee shook her head.

“I heard it from Miss Harper, who had heard it from Mr. Boyne, who had heard it from the police no less when they banged on his front door in the early hours of this morning! I’m sure the poor man nearly had a heart attack being woken up like that.” Rosemary Wylie was in full flight. “Someone said there was going to be a criminal inquiry — but that means that there must have been foul play of some sort. Why else have a criminal inquiry?”

“Who told you there was going to be a criminal inquiry, I never heard that,” said Cissie McGee.

“Why? What did you hear?” said Rosemary Wylie, turning sharply to Cissie McGee.

“Well, I heard that it was an accident and that he’d slipped off the bank and the Rescue Services found him.”

“Yes, the Rescue Services did find him, but—” Rosemary Wylie was cut off mid-sentence by Bella, the smallest and youngest of the Cigarette Factory Girls, who opened her mouth for the first time that evening.

“Is it true that somebody said that they saw him jumping into the river?”

“Really?” Rosemary Wylie swung around in her chair to face Bella.

Rita joined in, her eyes widening. “That would mean suicide, then.”

“I thought someone had heard a distress call from the river, so why would there have been a distress call if it was suicide?” Margaret, the third Cigarette Factory Girl, chipped in.

“I never heard that,” said Rosemary Wylie, miffed that Margaret might have heard something she hadn’t.

“I still don’t think it was foul play,” said Cissie McGee.

“But no one saw it happen, so how can you be sure?” said Rita.

“And why would anyone do something to someone like him?” said Margaret sadly.

“Well, when the Rescue Services found him, he was already dead, so he couldn’t tell them anything,” added Bella.

They all looked at Bella.

Then a knock came at the dressing room door.

“Yes?” Rosemary Wylie lifted her voice proprietorially.

The door opened and Charlie Copeland poked his head in. “Any of yous ladies have an eye pencil I could borrow?”

Rosemary Wylie tutted as though she were addressing a naughty child. “Charlie, you’ll have to get one of your own.” She handed him her eyebrow pencil. “And bring it back straight away!”

Charlie hovered at the doorway. “I heard the news about Tom McKinley. Isn’t it awful?”

“Yes, it’s awful,” drawled Rita.

“But what I can’t understand is why was he walking by the river last night when the weather was so bad?” Cissie McGee checked her watch as she spoke.

“There’s lots of things I can’t understand,” muttered Rosemary Wylie, throwing a glance over Katherine’s costume, which still hung on the rail.

Both Rita and Bella caught Rosemary Wylie’s expression but said nothing.

“Treacherous,” said Charlie Copeland, “I never saw rain like it, and that river must have been freezing — you wouldn’t have stood a chance — and that wind was howling like a song.”

Cissie McGee rose from her chair. “That’s coming up to the half hour, ladies. I’d better get organized. Everyone into costume, and don’t forget to check your props.”

“And who would have thought that could happen to a nice man like that, eh?” Charlie Copeland settled himself against the door frame.

“Charlie!” Cissie McGee tapped Charlie Copeland on the shoulder as she passed him. “The ladies have to get dressed now.”

“Oh, of course. Apologies, ladies.” Charlie Copeland straightened up. “Thanks for the pencil. I’ll drop it back later.” He saluted a stiff-faced Rosemary Wylie, then said before he left, “And no doubts about it, you’ll make heads turn in that costume again tonight, Katherine.”

Katherine didn’t respond.

Rosemary Wylie’s nostrils flared ever so slightly.

As Charlie Copeland and Cissie McGee left the ladies’ dressing room, they continued talking. “Well, I heard from James McCauley that there was a mud slide on the riverbank near the foundry.”. . “Really? Are you sure?”. . “Well, I think so. . Hugh Drummond said that they didn’t know how long he’d been in the water for. . said that he could have been there for ages.”. . “no, really?. .” And the voices disappeared.

Miss Harper was at the door. “There’s a policeman downstairs. He’s waiting in the kitchen at the back of the hall. Says he wants to have a quick word with everybody before the show starts!”

Mr. Charles Boyne could be heard clearly through the closed door of the little back kitchen of the church hall as Katherine waited outside it. Directly opposite her sat Ivy, dripping flowers and tears. Katherine felt the need to say something to Ivy, the girl appeared so distraught, but could only think of asking her if she was next in the queue.

Ivy lifted her tidy head. Her eyes were red as rubies. “I don’t want to go in. I’ll only make a complete fool of myself. I know I will.” She wiped her tears away with her cotton handkerchief.

“No,” said Katherine softly, “I’m sure you won’t.”