Maskerade

at it. “Yes,” she said. “Very…white. Very lacy. Very figure-hugging.”
    “And do you know what?!”
    “No. What?”
    “I already have a secret admirer!! Isn’t that thrilling ?! All the great singers have them, you know!!”
    “A secret admirer…”
    “Yes!! This dress!! It arrived at the stage door just now!! Isn’t that exciting?!”
    “Amazing,” said Agnes, glumly. “And it’s not as if you’ve even sung. Er. Who’s it from?”
    “He didn’t say, of course!! It has to be a secret admirer!! He’ll probably want to send me flowers and drink champagne out of my shoe!!”
    “Really?” Agnes made a face. “Do people do that?”
    “It’s traditional!!”
    Christine, boiling over with cheerfulness, had some to share…
    “You do look very tired!” she said. Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh!! We swapped rooms, didn’t we!! I was so silly!! And, d’you know,” she added with that look of half-empty cunning that was the nearest she came to guile, “I could have sworn I heard singing in the night…someone trying scales and things?!”
    Agnes had been brought up to tell the truth. She knew she should say: “I’m sorry, I appear to have got your life by mistake. There seems to have been a bit of a confusion…”
    But, she decided, she’d also been brought up to do what she was told, not to put herself first, to be respectful to her elders and to use no swearword stronger than “poot.”
    She could borrow a more interesting future. Just for a night or two. She could give it up any time she liked.
    “You know, that’s funny,” she said, “because I’m right next door to you and I didn’t.”
    “Oh?! Well, that’s all right, then!!”
    Agnes stared at the tiny meal on Christine’s tray. “Is that all you’re having for breakfast?”
    “Oh, yes! I can just blow up like a balloon, dear!! It’s lucky for you, you can eat anything!! Don’t forget it’s practice in half an hour!”
    And she skipped off.
    She’s got a head full of air, Agnes thought. I’m sure she doesn’t mean to say anything hurtful.
    But, deep inside her, Perdita X Dream thought a rude word.

    Mrs. Plinge took her broom out of the cleaning cupboard, and turned.
    “Walter!”
    Her voice echoed around the empty stage.
    “ Walter? ”
    She tapped the broom-handle warily. Walter had a routine. It had taken her years to train him into it. It wasn’t like him not to be in the right place at the right time.
    She shook her head, and started work. She could see it’d be a mop job later. It would probably be ages before they got rid of the smell of turpentine.
    Someone came walking across the stage. They were whistling.
    Mrs. Plinge was shocked.
    “Mr. Pounder!”
    The Opera House’s professional rat catcher stopped, and lowered his struggling sack. Mr. Pounder wore an old opera hat to show that he was a cut above your normal rodent operative, and its brim was thick with wax and the old candle ends he used to light his way through the darker cellars.
    He’d worked among the rats so long that there was something ratlike about him now. His face seemed to be merely a rearward extension of his nose. His mustache was bristly. His front teeth were prominent. People found themselves looking for his tail.
    “What’s that, Mrs. Plinge?”
    “You know you mustn’t whistle onstage! That’s terrible bad luck!”
    “Ah, well, it’s ’cos of good luck, Mrs. Plinge. Oh, yes! If you did know what I d’know, you’d be a happy man, too. O’ course, in your case you’d be a happy woman, on account of you being a woman. Ah! Some of the things I’ve seen, Mrs. Plinge!”
    “Found gold down there, Mr. Pounder?”
    Mrs. Plinge knelt down carefully to scrape away a spot of paint.
    Mr. Pounder picked up his sack and continued on his way.
    “Could be gold, Mrs. Plinge. Ah. Could very well be gold—”
    It took a moment for Mrs. Plinge to coax her arthritic knees into letting her stand up and shuffle around.
    “Pardon, Mr. Pounder?” she said.
    Somewhere in the distance, there was a soft thump as a bundle of sandbags landed gently on the boards.
    The stage was big and bare and empty, except for a sack which was scuttling determinedly for freedom.
    Mrs. Plinge looked both ways very carefully.
    “Mr. Pounder? Are you there?”
    It suddenly seemed to her that the stage was even bigger and even more distinctly empty than before.
    “Mr. Pounder? Cooo-eee?”
    She craned around.
    “Hello? Mr. Pounder?”
    Something