Triptych

3. Belief

So it's the aftermath, and he'd like to believe that despite whatever happened, theirs was a happily ever after.

For him it is. Now he has a channel for all the love in his life, his love for writing, his love for the theatre – and above all his love for Ann. She is his muse, and every play he writes, he writes for her. To see her with the stage lights touching her beautiful features, to hear her voice speak his words – his words – there is nothing that could make him happier.

But he knows it can never be a happy ending for her.

In the daylight she is happy, acting and dancing and doing vaudeville and theatre and everything she's ever wanted to do. But in the darkness of the night, the darkness that is no different from those primeval darknesses of terror back on the island, sometimes she wakes screaming from nightmares of unspoken horror, dreams in which she relives those dreadful days of sacrifice and capture – or even worse, the Fall.

Then he tries to soothe her fears, pressing her cold shivering body against him, stroking her damp hair, whispering assurances in her ears, until her sobs die away and her limbs cease their quivering. But he knows that in this tragedy that the night revives in her, he has no part – he is but a bystander, who but watched the trauma she experienced from the sidelines. He knows that when King Kong fell, he took part of her with him, something irreplaceable by any other love in her life. Sometimes, in those dark nights, he sees the huge face of the ape, mocking his helplessness.

Ann Darrow is a woman haunted, and there is nothing Jack Driscoll can do about it.

After her performance, he seeks her out in the dressing room backstage, where she is unpinning the heavy costume earrings from her earlobes. She smiles when his reflection appears in her mirror, and leans back into him when he comes up behind her chair.

"You were wonderful tonight," he tells her, even though she is wonderful every night, and she knows it.

"Flatterer," she laughs, and rises from the chair to face him.

"Ann," he says, suddenly serious. "Do you love me?"

The laughter is wiped from her face, replaced by a concern that makes him regret the question. "Of course I love you. Why do you ask?"

He shakes his head wistfully. "Nothing. It's just nice to hear."

She throws her arms around his neck and kisses him. "Then I'll say it again. I love you, Jack Driscoll. Will that do?"

He can't help returning her smile. "It'll do," he says, and kisses her back.

He believes her.

End.