Maskerade

“Everyone says she's showing such promise…”

Walter stepped up beside him. “Yes. We should get her somewhere,” he said. His voice was clipped and precise.

Agnes felt the bottom start to drop out of her world. “Yes, but… you know it was me doing the singing.”

“Oh, yes… yes, of course…” said Andre, awkwardly. “But…well… this is opera… you know…”

Walter took her hand.

“But it was me youtaught!” she said desperately.

“Then you were very good,” said Walter. “I suspect she will never be quite that good, even with many months of my tuition. But, Perdita, have you ever heard of the words 'star quality'?”

“Is it the same as talent?” snapped Agnes.

“It is rarer.”

She stared at him. His face, however it was controlled now, was quite handsome in the glare of the footlights.

She pulled her hand free. “I liked you better when you were Walter Plinge,” she said.

Agnes turned away, and felt Granny Weatherwax's gaze on her. She was sure it was a mocking gaze.

“Er… we ought to get Christine into Mr Bucket's office,” Andre said.

This seemed to break some sort of spell.

“Yes, indeed!!!” said Bucket. “And we can't leave Mr Salzella corpsing on stage, either. You two, you'd better take him backstage. The rest of you… well, it was nearly over anyway… er… that's it. The… opera is over…”

“Walter Plinge!”

Nanny Ogg entered, supporting Mrs Plinge. Walter's mother fixed him with a beady gaze. “Have you been a bad boy?”

Mr Bucket walked over to her and patted her hand. “I think you'd better come along to my office, too,” he said. He handed the sheaf of music to Andre, who opened it at random.

Andre gave it a glance, and then stared. “Hey… this is good,” he said.

“Is it?”

Andre looked at another page. “Good heavens!”

“What? What?” said Bucket.

“I've just never… I mean, even I can see… tum?ti TUM tum?tum…yes… Mr Bucket, you do know this isn't opera? There's music and… yes… dancing and singing all right, but it's not opera. Not opera at all. A long way from opera.”

“How far? You don't mean…” Bucket hesitated, savouring the idea, “you don't mean that it's just possible that you put music in and you get money out?”

Andre hummed a few bars. “This could very well be the case, Mr Bucket.”

Bucket beamed. He put one arm around Andre and the other around Walter. “Good!!!!!” he said. “This calls for a very lar… for a medium?sized mm drink…..

One by one, or in groups, the singers and dancers left the stage. And the witches and Agnes were left alone.

“Is that it?” said Agnes.

“Not quite yet,” said Granny.

Someone staggered on to the stage. A kindly hand had bandaged Enrico Basilica's head, and presumably another kindly hand had given him the plate of spaghetti he was holding. Mild concussion still seemed to have him in its grip. He blinked at the witches and then spoke like a man who'd lost his hold on immediate events and so was clinging hard to more ancient considerations.

“Summon give me some 'ghetti,” he said.

“That's nice,” said Nanny.

“Hah! “Ghetti is fine for them as likes it… but not me! Hah! Yes!” He turned and peered muzzily at the darkness of the audience.

“You know what I'm goin' to do? You know what I'm goin' to do now? I'm sayin' goodbye to Enrico Basilica! Oh yes! He's chewed his last tentacle! I'm goin' to go right out now and have eight pints of Turbot's Really Odd. Yes! And probably a sausage in a bun! And then I'm goin' down to the music hall to hear Nellie Stamp sing 'A Winkles No Use if You Don't Have a Pin' — and if I sing again here it's goin' to be under the proud old name of Henry Slugg, do you hear??”

There was a shriek from somewhere in the audience. “Henry Slugg?”

“Er… yes?”

“I thought it was you! You've grown a beard and stuffed a haystack down your trousers but, I thought, under that little mask, that's my Henry, that was!”

Henry Slugg shaded his eyes from the footlights' glare.

“…Angeline?”

“Oh, no!” said Agnes, wearily. “This sort of thing does not happen.”

“Happens in the theatre all the time,” said Nanny Ogg.

“It certainly does,” said Granny. “It's only a mercy he doesn't have a long?lost twin brother.”

There was the sound of much scuffling in the audience. Someone was climbing along a row, dragging someone else.

“Mother!” came a voice from the gloom. “What do you think you are doing?”

“You just come with me, young Henry!”

“Mother, we can't go up on the stage…!”

Henry Slugg frisbeed the plate into the wings, clambered down from the stage and heaved himself over the edge of the orchestra pit, assisted by a couple of violinists.

They met at the first row of seats. Agnes could just hear their voices.

“I meant to come back. You know that!”

“I wanted to wait but, what with one thing and another… especially one thing. Come here, young Henry…”

“Mother, what is happening?”

“Son… you know I always said your father was Mr Lawsy the eel juggler?”

“Yes, of—”

“Please, both of you, come back to my dressingroom! I can see we've got such a lot to talk about.”

“Oh, yes. A lot…”

Agnes watched them go. The audience, who could spot opera even if it wasn't being sung, applauded.

“All right,” she said. “And now is it the end?”

“Nearly,” said Granny.

“Did you do something to everyone's heads?”

“No, but I felt like smacking a few,” said Nanny.

“But no one said 'thank you' or anything!”

“Often the case,” said Granny.

“Too busy thinking about the next performance,” said Nanny. “The show must go on,” she added.

“That's… that's madness!”

“It's opera. I noticed that even Mr Bucket's caught it, too,” said Nanny. “And that young Andre has been rescued from being a policeman, if I'm any judge.”

“But what about me?”

“Oh, them as makes the endings don't get them,” said Granny. She brushed an invisible speck of dust off her shoulder.

“I expect we'd better be gettin' along, Gytha,” she said, turning her back on Agnes. “Early start tomorrow.”

Nanny walked forward, shading her eyes as she stared out into the dark maw of the auditorium.

“The audience haven't gone, you know,” she said. “They're still sitting out there.”

Granny joined her, and peered into the gloom. “I can't imagine why,” she said. “He did say the opera's over…