Theatre masks and roses flash design

The Lyceum sold the costume store on Tuesday to a man who wants the stalls turned into flats, and I spent Monday packing the trunks alone. At the bottom of the cedar chest, under grey velvet, I found the pair of masks we wore for the Dublin tour, tragedy and comedy, glued back together twice where you dropped them on the stage. The comedy one still has its painted rose on the cheek, though the paint has faded to the colour of weak tea.

Mr Adeyemi from the council asked what they were worth. I told him nothing, which is true, and he looked at me as if I had insulted his mother. The bead strings came off the chandelier we took down in 1987 and never hung again. Someone had threaded a small brass cross through the loop of the tragic mask, and I have no idea who. Probably Dorothy, who prayed through every final dress rehearsal and swore it was the only thing holding her wig pins in.

I could not bring myself to put them in the skip with the flats. They sit on my kitchen table now, facing each other, the way they hung over the proscenium every winter. I keep thinking the company was always two faces on one stick, laughing and weeping at the same time, and nobody in the stalls ever noticed which one was doing the work.

Come up at Easter if you can. Bring the good tea and your own key, because the lock on the stage door has finally given up. The last night is the thirtieth. Yours, always, Tom.