11. Thin Soup and Bread
"What do you mean, half-full?" said Alistair in blank disbelief.
He, Godwin, Edwin, Maeve and Shirley -- all the current acts at Royston's Dinner Theatre -- were assembled in managerial office on the second floor, their faces displaying varying degrees of concern.
"Just what I said," barked Royston from where he was seated behind his desk. His collar was unbuttoned and his hair in a rare state of disorder as he'd been running a hand through it almost constantly for the past four hours. "We're only half-full tonight. The bloody telespeaker's been dinging all day with people cancelling their reservations. It's that damned octopus! Scared to leave their homes after dark for fear they'll be mistaken for anchovies in waistcoats. The sooner the police capture the damned thing, the better. Until then, we may have to tighten our belts."
"But...but we've never played to a half audience before," stammered Edwin, nervously fingering his silk neckerchief. "I have no idea how Susie will react to less than a full house."
"As long as she gets her pre-show apple, Susie won't notice a thing. It's the rest of us that are going to be on thin soup and bread," mumbled Godwin.
Edwin turned to scowl at him, eyes narrowed to slits and an angry snarl curling his upper lip. "What would you know about the sensitivities of real artists, Mr I Read The Seating Chart?"
"More than one might imagine, pig boy," Godwin scowled back, drawing himself up to his full height. "I'm a mind reader, remember? And I'm mindreading that this is going to cut heavily into revenue, and not just for our impresario here. For all of us."
"Jones is right," Royston interrupted before Edwin could get in another jab. "One night we can weather. Maybe even two without any significant damage. But it this drags on, say, for a week or more..." Royston shook his head.
"What about tonight? I mean, will we be getting our normal pay?" asked Maeve, a scrawny woman with an acrobatic routine consisting of a unicycle and the juggling of everything from teacups to lit torches. "I got mouths at home to feed."
"Tonight, yes," said Royston, with a nod. "Tomorrow...ask me tomorrow."
"Do my ears deceive me?" Edwin shouted. His eyes bulged and his index finger stabbed the air in Royston's direction. "You can't possibly be considering closing. That's absurd! No respectable theatre ever closes. The show must go on!"
"You mean Susie must go on," said Maeve, earning herself a grin from Godwin. "Why the worry, Edwin? Behind on your child support payments?"
Edwin turned his dramatic scowl on Maeve. "I'm a professional. I understand how professional theatre operates, unlike some people. So you can take your jealousy with you when slink back to your hovel in Whitechapel, Maeve. I am above such things."
After a moment of collective silence, the air in Royston's office caught metaphoric fire as Maeve and Godwin jointly and loudly speculated on everything from the marital status of Edwin's mother at the time of his birth to the size of his ego in proportion to parts of his lower anatomy, plus some.
Shirley, a comedy ventriloquist, said nothing, but made it sound like Edwin was farting an off-tune version of Rule Britannia while Alistair contributed with searingly vitriolic comments on Edwin's stage wardrobe. Most especially the unforgivably poor matching quality of his waistcoat- sock combinations.
Edwin volleyed back a few terse responses, but was largely drowned out, so he contented himself with merely crossing his arms and glowering at his stage mates.
Before the meeting thoroughly disintegrated, Royston intervened, waving his hands and demanding quiet. "People! Let's not have that now. This is a crisis situation but we'll get through it without needing to close, I'm sure. Now, we've got two hours until opening curtain - that's you tonight, Shirley- so I want all of you get back to your dressing rooms and wait for your cues. And for the love of Cogmaster Wilkie, don't murder each other in the meantime, you're all still under contract. Dismissed."
Back in their dressing room, neither Godwin or Alistair spoke.
Godwin leaned against the closed door, head tilted up as if he was looking for amusing images in the ceiling plaster cracks. Alistair, who had taken the one chair, rubbed his fingertips back and forth over the top of the dressing table, his gaze inverted and glassy.
Finally, Alistair shook himself and said, "Well, this is a fine situation. I never imagined we'd be upstaged and simultaneously impoverished by a zoo attraction. I'm beginning to understand your resentment of Susie."
"It does seem as if our eight-armed friend desperately wants to keep the spotlight on itself," Godwin agreed. "The question is, why."
"Why?" asked Alistair. "You aren't seriously granting a giant mollusc the powers of reasoning now, are you?" Then with a cry, he added, "Oh, Goddy! Don't tell me you believe it escaped expressly to hammer the final nail into your stage career? That you and Edwin can't stand each other, that I --"
Godwin held up a hand. "Edwin can find himself an open manhole and nose-dive into a fascinating rat-guided tour of the city plumbing for all I'm concerned. No, I am not so egotistical as to think it is after me, but it is after... darling, there are a few things I'd rather not talk about, and this is one. I'm not hoarding secrets, I...it's complicated. Just trust me when I say I know that the octopus is following a very specific plan."
Alistair silently contemplated his partner. After so many years together he knew when Godwin needed to talk, but feared the consequences.
"Are you referring to the vision you had at the Zoo that made you all wobbly?" he asked. "The one you didn't want to tell me about no matter how much I bribed you with Dmitri's Gourmet Pistachio Pudding and an hour of my famous all-inclusive backrub?"
Godwin nodded.
"Do you want to tell me now that we know our livelihood is in danger?" Alistair continued, "or shall I simply worry myself into a state in which I'm envisioning us huddling over a defective hearth in a cellar flat in Shadwell while I beg my smirking brother for work in his shop? Let me state for the record, Goddy, I know not a farthing's worth about ladies' brassieres, and have no interest in increasing my knowledge in that field."
Godwin gave him a weak smile. "Perish the thought." He straighten up and took a deep breath.
"You know how I can sense things? I mean, I can't see further into the future than to my next mealtime and even that I am frequently mistaken about. But I can sense when people are honest with their intentions and when they have something up their sleeve. When they are bluffing and when they aren't. When they genuinely like me and when they don't, but are too well brought up to splash their drinks in my face and ring for the police. Things like that."
"Which is why the show is so planned out. Yes, I know you can't do it on command." Alistair nodded encouragingly.
"But there's...something else. It rarely happens, but when it does...."
"Come on, Goddy, out with it. You know I don't judge. Or at least, not very much. Please, save me from fitting brassieres. Please." Alistair bent forward and took a play swipe at Godwin's knees.
Godwin took a deep breath. "Sometimes I just know things. Things no one could. It's very rare and I can't explain it, but when it happens it feels as if I've cracked some part of myself open and am unravelling at the seams.
There was this lad in our village back home. They said he wasn't in his wits and should have been locked up in an institution long beforehand, but seeing as how his family's farm was so remote and they mostly kept to themselves..." Godwin shrugged. "Cyril was his name. Cyril Barnrig."
"And what did you know concerning this Cyril Barnrig?"
"That he was planning to torch the village church, with the vicar still inside. And he did, too. Locked the poor man in the vestry and set fire to the chapel curtains with a candle from the altar. He passed by under my bedroom window. One glance and I knew, but I didn't believe it. Couldn't believe it. I thought I must have simply been having uncharitable thoughts about him due to his circumstances. Then the waves became nasty and I had to lie down."
"That's...I don't know what to say. And it's happened since?"
"Yes, but the first time was by far the worst. The smoke and the sight of the flames over the rooftops frightened me more than anyone else in the village, I think, because it was proof. Solid, black, burning proof of how right the knowledge had been. And when I found out about the vicar and what they'd done to Cyril when they found him... rope and a convenient tree, you get the picture...I thought it was just best never to talk about it. With anyone. "
"And that's the same feeling you had when seeing octopus? That someone was out to kill?"
Godwin shook his head. "I don't think so. At least, that wasn't part of the information I... I knew it was going to escape, Alistair. Escape with the very specific plan of stirring up trouble. More trouble than just some knocked over sheds and broken windows, as the papers have been reporting. And it has a human hand guiding it. That's where the genuine malicious intent for something far greater sits. With the person controlling it. What they up their sleeve to do next, however, don't ask me."
"Then who could we ask?" asked Alistair. But he already seemed to know the answer.
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