Page 94 of The Extraordinary Florence Stoker

She drained her drink, asked for another, then began.

As I listened to Oscar’s final days and hours, the lump in my throat travelled to the pit of my stomach.

‘He’d been suffering for some time,’ said Ellen. ‘That damn ear of his – you remember it started when he was in Wandsworth prison, becoming worse after he was transferred to Reading.’

For all we avoided direct contact with Oscar, Bram and I made sure to be informed about his wellbeing, the terrible conditions he endured. It was a form of penance … How pathetic of us, I thought, as I listened to Ellen. How selfish.

‘The doctor who attended him at the Hotel D’Alsace had a surgeon operate – a mastoidectomy or some such procedure. Positively ghastly.’ She gave a tremulous sigh. ‘It didn’t work. Oscar was in agony and eventually developed meningitis or some such disease. Reginald says that’s what killed him.’

I could scarce bear to hear any more, but I must. For Oscar. For Bram. God, how would he take the news? He’d wanted to go to Paris, see Oscar, give him whatever money we could spare. But with sentiment still against Oscar, I’d persuaded him not to. What if he had? What if extra money had enabled Oscar to afford better doctors? Better care?

‘When did he die?’ I asked softly.

‘The thirtieth of last month. I found out yesterday. I didn’t know how to tell you, Lemon. I know what Oscar meant to you.’

I stood up swiftly and went to the window. ‘Means, Ellen. Means. His death doesn’t change how I feel about him.’ Only about myself.

Ellen joined me at the window. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t have the words.

‘Reginald said Oscar converted to Rome before he died.’

I swallowed a sob. Ellen was one of the few who knew about my visits to the Catholic chapel and my intention to convert. Strangely, this detail gave me comfort. I thought of the gold cross he’d given me. I touched my breast and sent a swift prayer for Oscar’s soul heavenward. Rain began to fall. Slow at first, it soon teemed, hammering the window, punishing the house. Presently, the park opposite was obscured by a thick curtain of water.

‘The news will take a while to reach the British press,’ Ellen went on. ‘There’s been some confusion over his death certificate and the burial. His alias, you see.’

Oscar had been using the name Sebastian Melmoth – a combination of the saint, and the title of his great-uncle’s gothic novel. Well, Melmoth would wander no more.

‘Reginald says the funeral, which Bosie paid for —’

I scoffed. As if that compensated for everything else that man had done.

‘A quiet affair. About twenty attended.’

I recalled the opening night of The Importance of Being Earnest. The thunderous applause, the acclaim for Oscar – hundreds and hundreds of people. In death, a mere twenty.

We stood in silence, staring into the rain.

‘Oscar once told me,’ I began faintly, ‘that one day, he’d be poet, a writer, or even a dramatist. Somehow or other, he swore, he’d be famous.’ Words began to break apart, lose their form. I struggled to piece them back together. ‘And … if he couldn’t be famous, he … he said …’ Ellen pulled me against her. ‘I’ll … I’ll be notorious.’ My eyes swam, my throat constricted.

‘He had his wish, Lemon,’ she whispered against my hair. ‘He had his wish.’

Was it strange that Oscar’s death somehow brought Bram and me closer? In our own very different ways, we’d both loved the man. For Bram, it was a love borne out of respect for Oscar’s talent, their shared heritage – Dublin boys, Trinity College, Irishmen in London, writers, their passion for theatre, and maybe, I liked to think, their affection for me.

Foolishly, unrealistically, I’d hung on to the crazy idea that fate would draw Oscar and me back together. I didn’t know how or why, but I’d always felt that as star-crossed lovers, we’d reunite and confess our feelings, acknowledge that somewhere along the path of life, we’d taken a wrong turn.

That would never happen. Oscar was gone. My Poor O was no more.

I scarce remember Christmas that year, let alone lurching into the new one. Noel tried to jolly us out of our grief, before leaving us to wallow in it. I spent days collecting all Oscar had ever written or sent me – a signed copy of his fairytales, The Happy Prince, his translation of Salome. Every letter and note. Bram gathered all the works of Oscar’s he had and placed them on a shelf where he could see them as he toiled. When Bram went to the theatre, I’d pull them out and sit in Bram’s study, reading. Thinking.

Bram and I drifted through the days and weeks, occasionally colliding, sitting in respectful silences when together, filled with unspoken reminiscences. Bram would sometimes reach for my hand and give it a tender squeeze. My fingers would tarry on his shoulder when I took tea to his study or peered to see what he was scribbling in his journals. Whenever we parted, we would embrace, remaining in each other’s arms just a little longer. It was as if we were giving ourselves permission to grieve and absorb each other’s pain – the pain of lost love, the wound Oscar’s absence left, of a terrible guilt but, most of all, if I am being entirely honest, relief.

Though it was never spoken between us, there was a sense of emancipation with Oscar’s death and the cessation of the scandal surrounding him and his associates. Perhaps our secret would be safe.

We would be safe.

As if to mock my shallowness, my spectre began to appear more frequently, taking on something of the mien of Poor O. Not as I last saw him in the courtroom, swollen with profligacy, or, as he’d been reported later, scabrous, thin, with gold and white dentures and hollow eyes. But as he’d been the night he entered the Lyceum and given that wonderful paean to Ellen as Portia – distinguished, cloaked, with a wicked twinkle in those hooded eyes.

I didn’t acknowledge the spirit openly, but stole many glances, drinking in the splendid presence and the memories it evoked. Only when the apparition (or whatever godforsaken being it was) sensed my awareness, he would metamorphose into his regular form, the skin becoming grey, the eyes blood-red, the hands attenuated and covered in hair. Finally, the teeth would transform into glistening vampiric fangs and gnash in my direction, threatening to sink into my flesh.