𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐄 , alfie solomons

ONE ┊back to small heath

- 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄 -
❝ fucking birmingham. ❞

   "YET HERE'S A SPOT."

The words fell from actress's mouth as if they were her own, amplified to stretch across the whole theatre and convincing enough to fool the audience into thinking she really was Lady Macbeth. In her mind, she was Lady Macbeth. At least, at that very moment she was. The day prior she was Desdemona, and the next day she would be Ophelia. But that night, that very night, she was Lady Macbeth. Not Josephine Shelby.

Her dress swooped across the ground as she hurried across the stage, a feigned look of madness in her bright blue eyes as she fell to her knees, almost as if she had been tripped up by an invisible force. Pulling up the sleeves of her white night gown, she began to wash her hands frantically in the bowl filled to the brim with water.

   "Out, damned spot! Out, I say! One, two. Why, then, 'tis time to do 't. Hell is murky!—Fie, my lord, fie!" Josephine exclaimed, speaking to herself as the two other actors on the stage stood off to the side. "A soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him."

Josephine's hands were becoming sore with how harsh she was scrubbing them in the water, but she kept it up to make her performance more believable for the paying audience. She would not break character.

   "Here's the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand..." I will not break character, she had thought. That is until she spotted his bright blue eyes in the audience, eyes that matched her own. Her hands paused for a moment, but her split second of inner conflict didn't last long, and she continued with the dialogue, ignoring the familiar face in the audience. "Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on 's grave."

The character of Lady Macbeth removed her hand from the bowl of water and with shaky hands, pulled on her nightgown and began to back away from the centre of the stage.

   "To bed, to bed. There's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come. What's done cannot be undone. - To bed, to bed, to bed!" With that, Josephine retreated backstage, and the character she had built up was left behind. She sighed a breath of relief.

The play continued while she sat in her dressing room, awaiting knocking at her door. She knew it would come at any moment but busied herself with reading through the letters that had been dropped off for her. Letters that expressed their admiration for her performances, all of which brought a smile to her face. She stored them in a small box which she would take home once the play was over with.

Just as she expected, the door was knocked on. She contemplated not answering at all, her eyes rolling as she pulled on a robe over her costume, which was thin and causing her to grow colder by the minute without the robe. Eventually, Josephine opened the door, taking her sweet time.

Thomas Shelby. Josephine only stared at him for a moment before turning her back on her brother.

  "The audience members usually wait until after the play is finished to speak to the actors," Josephine grumbled, leaving the door open as she sat back down at her desk.

Thomas didn't reply to her comment, walking further into the room until he was leaning against the wall by her dressing table, his arms folded across his chest.