A single ice statue stood at the tip of this arrow of snow. Its limbs were thinner than the statues outside. It wobbled a little in the gust produced by the fans.
As Byron watched through the window, and as the Domers watched from inside, the statue seemed to become more substantial. White powder collected upon its spindly frame, accumulating on its arms, body and head.
High above, where three lamps made an artificial sun, it began to snow.
Always a Dancer
Steve Lockley
From: Always a Dancer & Other Stories
Garry was busking in the underpass at the end of the Kingsway when I saw him. It was the first time we had been in the same city, as far as I knew, for almost three years.
Garry Antoniazzi, Italian looks and a voice to match, or at least that was how he had been when he had left for London with a recording contract in his pocket. Now he was thin to the point of looking haggard and his voice shot to pieces.
The temptation was to walk straight past. It would have been easy to allow myself to be carried away by the heavy flow of Christmas shoppers who dragged plastic bags and small children with equal force. Instead I stopped and spoke to him, despite the noise of the traffic above which echoed around the white tile walls even though I did not really have anything to say. I could not look him in the eye, finding my gaze being drawn to the graffiti behind his shoulder.
‘That thing frozen to your lips’, I said as he came to the end of ‘Silent Night’. The final chord played as a flourish into the bustle of the crowd. I half expected him to thank his audience despite the fact that no-one was really listening, and yet a few coins were still dropped into his battered guitar case. He unscrewed the neck brace which held the harmonica a few inches from his chin.
‘Alright?’ he said as he bent to gather some of the coins which had started to collect in the case. It never pays to look as if you are doing too well I remember him telling me when we had played together before he started to dream of a career. I fumbled in my pocket for change. ‘No need for that,’ he said as he strummed another chord without enthusiasm. He looked me straight in the eyes, unblinking, and I felt as if there was nothing behind them.
‘Fancy a coffee?’ he said without breaking that momentary silence. I nodded, and we spent an hour in a crowded café staring into our cups to the accompaniment of angry car horns. Neither of us was prepared to talk about the one thing that really mattered. Rowena.
Eventually, when I thought he was about to give up and go back out into the cold he said, ‘Have you seen her?’
‘No.’ There was no need for him to mention her name. We both knew who he was talking about. ‘Not since…’
‘Right,’ he said. ‘Only I thought she might have been in touch.’
‘What makes you think that?’
He shrugged, ‘We had a row. She told me she had made the wrong choice. I thought she meant between me and you.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’ve not heard from her. Thought she was still with you.’ It was true. I had not heard from her despite thinking about her every night before I went to sleep, thinking about her sharing his bed. It still hurt.
‘Didn’t work out in the end. Everything sort of fell apart.’
Sort of fell apart, that was a bit of an understatement. When Garry left for London, supposedly for good, his first single was already storming up the charts and it seemed like he had made it. There were a couple of other minor hits but nothing as lucrative as Always a Dancer, the song we had written together. I still got the occasional royalty cheque which paid for a holiday, but nothing more. If that was all Garry had left then he had started to hit the bad times.
‘She reckoned I was nothing without you,’ he said.
I really didn’t want to hear this but found I could not stop him.
‘She said it was you that made things happen. Even she couldn’t help me. Maybe she was right. I just know I can’t cut it without her. We should all have stayed together mate.’ He paused for a moment. ‘When she said she was coming back I had to follow. There’s nothing to keep me in London.’
The silence returned and I collected another couple of coffees. This time Garry reached into his holdall and pulled out a half bottle of scotch and poured a liberal shot into his cup. He offered it to me but I declined.
‘Is that the real reason she left?’ I asked pointing to the bottle. He screwed the cap back on tightly and returned it to his bag. ‘No. Maybe it’s part of everything, but I guess the real reason is that there was something missing. Something I couldn’t get for her anymore. It just took her longer to realise it than it should have.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘An audience. That’s all she ever wanted. She only came with me because I promised she could dance on stage, just like when we played the clubs together.’
‘So that was the reason was it? You bastard,’ I said.
‘Sure. Why else do you think she wanted to be with me. In the end I think she would have preferred it if things had stayed the way they had been. As it was I forced her into making a choice. I gave her the chance to dance in front of thousands of people rather than sixty or seventy punters waiting for the bingo to start.’
I looked at my watch, staring at the second hand travelling slowly round the dial. There was a moment of sudden realisation, but maybe I needed Garry to bring her out in the open.
‘I know where she’ll be,’ I said. ‘Or at least where she’ll be in a couple of hours.’
I took Garry back to my flat, let him take a shower and gave him some dry clothes. ‘That all you’ve got?’ I asked when he tipped out the contents of his holdall in the bathroom.
‘Yeah. They took my car away so I had to come on the train. Used the last of my ready cash to get the ticket. I’ve been back for a few days singing a bit to raise a few quid,’ he laughed. ‘Nobody recognised me though. I guess if I ever get back to my place to pick up some more gear the bailiffs will have cleaned me out.’
I followed his eyes as they looked around the flat and saw him smile as they alighted on the silver disc, which still held pride of place. ‘You kept it then?’
‘Of course. Why not? We wrote it together.’
‘Yeah we wrote it for her didn’t we? Anyway she was the one who said I should send it to you after the way everything happened. Besides, I expected to get a few more. Never happened though, did it?’
We had been playing the song as part of our set when we did the pubs and clubs, for around a year before Garry put a demo together and sent it off. Six months later he was in the studio to do a professional job. The deal was just for Garry. Musicians are ten a penny the A&R guy had said, and for twopence you can get the best. He didn’t have to spell it out. I wasn’t good enough.
‘Where do you think she is going to be?’
‘Where we found her, or rather where she found us.’
I could remember that evening as clearly as if it had only been a week ago. We had been busking on the patch of grass laughingly called a park even though it was no bigger than a decent sized back garden. Yet it was still an oasis in the middle of the office blocks and the shopping centre which surrounded it. We had been playing Willy O’Winsbury, an old folk tune I had found on a Bert Jansch album. It was the song that had made me dig my violin out of the attic after not playing it for years after leaving school. From then on I had been happy to play what Garry had always called the oddball instruments, violin, mandolin even a bit of sitar when the mood took me, while he played the guitar and sang. Boy could he sing then. Not the croaky rasp he had been forcing out in the underpass, but something rich and velvety and went well with a lot of the folk songs we played.
We had been getting a steady chink of coins from shoppers heading back to the bus depot when Rowena appeared seemingly out of nowhere. She started to dance and before we knew it a small crowd had stopped to listen
to what we were playing, or more likely to watch the grace with which Rowena danced. She had never told us about her past and we all knew it was a subject best left alone. If she had come home, then that scrubby piece of grass would be where we would find her.
It was dark by the time we walked back through the streets which were slowly emptying, leaving behind the debris of the day. The lights in the pubs and the burger bars showed that enough people had stopped off on their way home to prevent the city turning in to a ghost town before the night people began to emerge.
When we reached the park, Garry was more than a little disappointed.
‘She’s not here,’ he said.
‘Give her time. It’s still early.’
‘But it’s all changed. This used to be a clean place.’
He was right of course. Back then, all ten of the lights around the perimeter would have been working but now fewer than half of them tried to pierce the gloom. Everywhere there was litter where shoppers had taken their lunch and simply dropped the rubbish or shoved it into the overgrown hedge rather than take the trouble to find a bin. In a way it was lucky that not all the lights were working.
‘We played over there,’ Garry said, pointing to the one patch of grass where two lights were working well enough to illuminate enough space to create a stage.
I nodded then looked around again. In another corner an old guy with a dog on a piece of string was throwing up behind a badly neglected rose bed. This made me more angry than the way the park had fallen into ruin. It was the very spot where Rowena and I had first made love.
I pulled the violin case tighter under my arm and nodded towards the illuminated patch of grass. ‘Come, let’s do it.’
‘But she’s not here,‘ he said.
‘No, but there is an audience,’ I laughed nodding to the assortment of drunks that had taken over most of the benches. Later, no doubt when the late night shopping had ended, they would move to the shop doorways to sleep, but for now they had taken refuge away from the bustle.
I stroked the wood of the violin which felt strangely warm in the cool night air. I had not played it since the two of them had left, although I had taken it out from time to time and polished it. As we tuned up it started to feel like the old days, at least the days before Rowena had come along. I played the opening bars and Garry joined in. My cold unpractised fingers feeling a slight pain as I pressed the strings.
‘The King has been a poor prisoner, and a prisoner lang in Spain,’ Garry sang croakily but without hesitation and I felt myself so caught up in the tune that although I could hear the sound of Garry’s voice I was not really listening to the words. As he fell comfortably into the lyric it was clear that his voice was not as bad as it had seemed earlier in the day and it gathered resonance with each line.
I remembered every word of the song as if it was engraved in my memory. The King has returned after years away and he suspects that his daughter has been sleeping with Willy O’Winsbury, a man he believes to be a commoner.
The throng started to gather around us while the others sat up on their benches to listen to the story. The small crowds were not the usual drunks and layabouts the city had suffered for years. These were the last. People with broken lives, no homes and no hope. People who carried their lives in dustbin bags and battered rucksacks. Old and young alike they gathered round for a moment of warmth that cost nothing, not even an open hand.
Then the crowd broke slightly to let someone through, almost as if they had been waiting for her. The mass of bodies which was swelling in front of us parted as she appeared, pushing her way through just as she had done before.
‘Cast off, cast off your berry brown gown. Stand naked on a stone,’ Garry continued. ‘So I may tell by your shape, whether you be a maiden or no.’
Rowena stepped out of the dress she was wearing to reveal herself, no longer beautiful but waif-like and thin. She started to sway with the melody, oblivious to the cold. I had never seen her like this before, erotic and seductive; before she had always been innocent. Perhaps that had been Garry’s influence, or the result of being away from home. Corruption.
She waved her arms to the ragged men and women who stood or sat entranced by the performance and beckoned them to join her. Tentatively at first they threw their clothes aside and joined her in the dance.
‘Keep playing,’ she said as we approached the end of the song, with Willy having shown himself as a wellborn man and marrying the King’s daughter. My fingers started to play Always a Dancer almost unbidden but Garry laid down his guitar. I had to keep playing, I knew that. It felt so right. Rowena continued to dance, looking more like a child than ever, her small breasts disappearing into her protruding ribs. Garry threw his own clothes to the ground beside me and joined the dance as I began to play faster and faster. People walked past the park, even through it but no-one paid any attention, as if they had arrived too late to become involved.
‘Faster,’ Rowena cried and I obliged. I wanted to stop and join them, but if I did who would play to keep the dance going? The tempo picked up with each repetition of the main melody until the bodies swirling in front of me became a blur of flesh. Then a string snapped with a twang, catching my cheek and I stopped playing, the fingers of my left hand raw and bleeding on the fingerboard.
They had gone. Garry, Rowena the lost and lonely, all of them. If it had not been for the mass of rags and bags I could have convinced myself that I imagined it.
This time perhaps she had taken her audience with her.
The End of the World
Margrét Helgadóttir
From: The Stars Seem So Far Away
‘There it is, boss!’ said Erik. Even though he had on his headphones, Simik could barely hear the pilot above the loud purr of the engine. The soldiers leaned forward to scan the landscape in front of them. Simik frowned; he saw nothing but a wall of harsh naked mountains, their shadows stretching over the flat plain. They were far enough south that daytime brought an hour of bluish grey light, even in the middle of the dark season, but night was approaching quickly.
‘Where? I can’t see it,’ he shouted.
‘See that little bump at the bottom of that mountain?’ Erik pointed.
‘Yes.’ One of the mountains had a small protuberance near its foot.
‘Look closer at the base.’
Simik studied the mountain surface, a jet black mass in the grey twilight, smooth and solid, with no irregularities or signs of any human presence. In the spreading darkness, Simik found it almost impossible to see anything. He was tempted to ask Erik to turn on the searchlight, but then something blinked at them from the ground, and he finally saw it: a rift in the surface at the bottom of the mountain, something you wouldn’t look at twice when passing. The blinking could be a coincidence but he doubted it. He peered at the rift. No, not a coincidence. Despite the meagre light, he was certain he saw something move down there.
‘They have seen us,’ he said. ‘Put us down here.’
Erik nodded, his blond curls and headphones bobbing. ‘There’s a strong wind down there. It might be a bit bumpy.’
As if in warning, the wind suddenly grabbed hold of the craft and shook it. Erik steered them down to the plain and turned off the engine. Simik let out his breath. The silence was shattering. Then they heard the wind howl outside. The craft swayed a little. ‘Better get going, boss. The wind might get worse and then we’re stuck here,’ said Erik.
The soldiers climbed out quickly, their boots crunching on the frozen ground. The black mountains loomed over them. The dim light of the full moon gave the men’s faces a ghostly white glow.
‘Erik, you stay here. Lars, you too. If we are not back in three hours, leave.’
‘Yes, boss!’ the two men answered in unison.
The others tied daypacks on their backs and hung rifles over their shoulders. Erik carried a pistol rath
er than a rifle, for which the others teased him relentlessly. The pistol was ancient, something he’d inherited. It made a lot of noise and it was heavier than the advanced rifles. Now he put the old-fashioned firearm on the seat next to him in the cockpit and patted it.
The soldiers were heavily armed and prepared for the worst, including close-quarter fighting. Two wore combat knives, visible in the sheaths attached to their belts. Simik knew the others wore concealed knives and boomerangs. His own knife was strapped to his right leg. He’d hidden small projectiles in his clothes and explosives and hand grenades in his rucksack. He wondered if they would have to use the weapons. It’d been a while. Since the coup, they rarely met people who threatened them or took up a fight. Nowadays, Simik seldom bothered to arm himself with more than his rifle.
His men shifted restlessly on their feet, eager to move. Their eyes shone and a few were unable to stifle their grins. Simik didn’t blame them. He was bored too. In the absence of war and guerrilla activities, the soldiers functioned as guards, social workers and police officers. It would be good to have some adrenaline flowing again, he thought.
The soldiers tried to help as many of the people as they could. Occasionally they came across aggressive ones who had slipped into madness, but mostly they met people who just needed a good talk and a meal. Wave after wave of people came from across the sea, telling tales about a sun that killed more and more of the land, about famine, wars and death, plagues that wiped out whole cities. They spoke of pirates who roamed the tall seas and robbers along the main roads. Most seemed happy to finally be able to tell someone their stories. They were lonely, Simik thought, people who’d lost their families, who were searching for meaning, looking for company.
Small settlements had popped up around Nuuk and the southern coast, where the climate was milder and the sun stayed longer. The new government had confiscated the seed vaults, fish farms and laboratories from the privileged few under the former government, and now ran them as small partnerships with local groups. These mini-societies maintained the vaults and laboratories and could take as much as they wanted for their own use, as long as they allowed the government to distribute the surplus to the other societies, a beneficial situation for all, not just the few.
Fearless Genre Warriors Page 29