Rosetta! He’d heard that name outside Crystal Consciousness when Conan Dalesford voiced his gratitude to the manager for a sales assistant’s help, and again more recently when working late. Jack the cleaner had been calling out to one of his casual recruits, ‘Rosetta, could you do the tea room on the other side of the lifts?’ and Matthew had thought about that name, thinking how interesting the name had sounded. He’d got home to find Laura watching a cartoon DVD with a little friend of hers. They were laughing at Bugs Bunny planting out a carrot patch in crooked zigzags.
‘Now all I need is a Rosetta,’ the rabbit said in his nasal drone.
‘What does he mean by a Rosetta?’ said Matthew, surprised that the name had repeated.
Laura was absorbed in the movie, so neglected to answer.
Laura’s little friend shyly answered for her. ‘He needs a row-setter because he doesn’t know how to set the rows properly.’
He’d been hearing things. Trying to make a coincidence stretch into something more significant.
The brunette smiled coquettishly. ‘Need any help with that?’
‘Thanks anyway, but I’ve got it under control.’
Inside Room Five, a low-toned, melodious voice, which instantly gave Matthew a feeling of comfort, began reciting.
The brunette eyed him with aggression. ‘I don’t bite, moron!’ She rushed to Room Seven where a sign on the door read: Mums without Marriages Assertiveness Training.
Matthew stopped gathering his papers for a moment and listened to assess whether his own scribblings were better or worse than the poet who now spoke. Her poem had begun with a reference to dreaming:
‘When slumber’s cosmic travels end each night
(My flight through stars and cities still unknown)
I find that I am bathed in silver light
I feel at peace although I am alone’
Worse, he concluded. My rhymes are an embarrassment.
The woman sounded super-relaxed. Sexy too. He had to get a look at this Rosetta to see if she was as nice as her voice. Matthew sorted through his papers to find the one he planned to read, half listening to the words of Rosetta’s second verse:
‘Until I hear soft music in the breeze
The piper: I remember him so well
He waits for me beneath the shaded trees
Enchanted, I am woven in his spell’
The piper! I’m with you there, Rosetta, Matthew thought. Peter Piper always greets me beside a tree.
He flicked past the verse he’d jokingly recited to Dalesford. ‘I’m not poetic in anyone’s language,’ he’d told him after that daft suggestion of attending the group. ‘Although I’ve no doubt I could mesmerise them with my eagle poem.’
He returned to the first and second stanzas:
Suddenly starts to circle the sky
Searching the ground with a watchful eye
He’s spotted his prey
A field-mouse wee
The merciless eagle has found his tea
‘Didn't mesmerise me,’ Dalesford had drawled. Matthew had feigned surprise. 'I'm guessing you mean tea as in “meal” and not “beverage”.’
‘Yep. And bear in mind “field-mouse wee” is just Yoda speak for “tiny critter”. I wasn’t referring to rodent urine.’
‘Why not add some drama?’ Dalesford had said. ‘Something like:
‘O fragile mouse
Prayers you must pray
Your life is over from today’
Dalesford had then said, ‘That’s a joke, actually. How about:
‘Poor fragile mouse
A sky king’s prey
’Tis sad survival works this way
‘You’ll get the women in with that one. Women love to feel sympathy. But I really think you should try out something light. Get ’em giggling.’
So Matthew had settled on ‘Stuntman’. He’d just have to locate it in the jumble he’d gathered back into his folder.
Rosetta’s poem went on.
‘Some say his name is Pan the woodland faun
And beauty he creates through drowsy tone
The piper at the golden gates of dawn
It’s he who frees the eagle turned to stone
‘You’ll find him in the woods and misty vales
Perhaps beside a babbling brook or stream
Or read of him in myths and fairy tales
I find him at the end of every dream
‘So if you hear soft music in the breeze
At dawn or dusk or when the moon’s ashine
Look for him beneath the shaded trees
And let him be your friend as he is mine’
Loud applause followed Rosetta’s conclusion. Despite his lack of proximity, Matthew clapped too. He was impressed with the way the poem was related and intrigued by the dream described. An eagle. A piping Pan. Maybe the kid who featured in his—and Rosetta’s—dreams was the window-hopping Peter Pan, taking a vacation from the late J.M. Barrie’s imagination.
Matthew sorted through each poem in search of ‘Stuntman’. The host of the evening said, ‘Thank you, Rosetta, for your whimsical work entitled “The Piper”. I understand you wrote this some time ago.’
‘Yes,’ was Rosetta's reply. ‘Back when I was an idealistic ninth grader.’
Matthew grinned in recognition. Was everyone there tonight a tormented teen poet at some stage?
‘I was fifteen when I wrote it, and my inspiration was Chapter Seven of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I thought the part about Pan at the gates of dawn was amazing, really amazing, because it reminded me of a dream I had once. About an elf.’
‘An elf?’ Matthew whispered.
‘An elf?’ said the host.
‘Yeah, but the reason I probably dreamt this was I was reading Lillibridge’s Our True Ancient History at the time.’
‘Ah, old Lillibridge, eh? You were dreaming about Lillibridge’s Pieter. Quite controversial, this author. Some say it wasn’t fiction. What do you say, Rosetta?’
Lillibridge’s Peter? Who the frack was Lillibridge? Where could Matthew get the book? And why had the host pronounced Peter ‘P-yetta’?
‘To be honest, Claude, I have no fixed opinion. Fiction seems to be the most logical conclusion, and yet I feel we should all keep an open mind.’
‘Spoken like a true fence-sitter, Rosetta. Have you thought of getting into politics?’
The woman’s voice fell into a soft, low laugh. ‘Hey, that’s a great idea!’
Ironic. Unselfconscious. Or painfully superior if she’d meant it.
‘We’d be very, very proud of you if you did. First Poets’ Garret member to govern Australia. Rosetta for PM in 2020 I say. We’ve never had a rhyming leader. I think it could be quite novel. Hands together again for the delightful Rosetta Melki.’
Now was a good time to go in, during a break in recitals. While Claude announced the next poet, Matthew darted into Room Five and took a seat at the back on the far left end. The Rosetta woman must have resumed her seat. There was no-one at the lectern except a grizzly looking dude who looked like he wanted to punch someone. He was booming out a ballad about a workmate stealing his wife.
The ballad seemed to be backgrounded by a high pitched treble. Technical difficulties with the mike, no doubt. Matthew scanned the front of the room only to find the poet’s amplified voice was all his own doing. The room had no microphone! Tinnitus again. Had to be.
Matthew banged a hand against his ear. No change in sound. He patted his hand against his ear again. Seemed to be coming from without rather than from within. He leaned his head to the side and patted his ear more energetically this time, the impact of each pat resounding thumpishly in his skull.
Aware someone seated on his right had lurched around to face him, he stopped. Beyond a small stretch of empty seats, an elderly woman with excessively black hair was watching him with wary concern. She edged across to a seat further away. Feeling he owed her an explanation, Matthew poin
ted to his head and said, ‘Tinnitus.’
Mistaking it for an introduction, the woman nodded a frail nod and gestured to herself in much the same way. ‘Valerie.’
Low and haunting. The soft, sweet whistle of a pipe made from reed. ‘Okay, Peter Piper,’ Matthew said under his breath. ‘I’m aware you’re here. Now push off.’ The tune halted immediately.
Matthew looked around the room, at its walls in need of repainting, its low speckled ceiling. He observed the backs of heads in the row of seats in front. Directly before him was a sleek, dark mane of flowing, reddish-brown hair. He stared at the hair for a while, hoping the woman would turn to the side a little so he could catch a glimpse of her face. Maybe he should whistle a tune so that she’d spin round to look at him. Peter Piper’s tune would do. He didn’t believe anyone in the audience could be enjoying the grumbles of Mr Chip-on-his-Shoulder. Musical entertainment from Matthew might be appreciatively received.
He loved that kind of hair. It reminded him of winter nights as a student of Wimbledon West High, doing homework at his girlfriend’s. Flickering light from the hearth would lend her tresses the colour of burnt toffee. She’d looked like some kind of fire sprite: the glow of flames caressing downcast eyes as she’d concentrated on her essays.
Before long, it was Matthew’s turn to recite. He retrieved ‘Stuntman’ from the top of his papers, moved to the front of the room where Claude introduced him, and began to read:
‘I’ve jumped from a moving drawbridge
Surrounded by a moat
I’m glad that there was water
Because I missed the boat
‘I’ve had to do outrageous things
Like eating camel’s eyes
The actor was a vegan
It came as no surprise’
A sprinkling of giggles. Not sure whether the other poets were laughing with him or at him, Matthew looked up to acknowledge them, and his gaze fell upon the seat in front of his own. It was empty. The mysterious red-brunette had remained mysterious. He went on.
‘I’ve had to use a parachute
While falling through the air
But when reaching for the rip-cord
I found it wasn’t there
‘Luckily my neck was saved
Director Arnold Coppins
Yelled “Take out your umbrella!
We’re filming Mary Poppins.” ’
A dash of applause. There she was. He could see three-quarters of her through the doorway, standing in the foyer and facing the other way. She was scanning a notice board and murmuring into her mobile.
‘And do the gals admire me?
They don’t by any means
The gals prefer the actors
Yet I do the “hero” scenes
‘They couldn’t give a hoot about
Us brave and daring lads
Instead they go for poncey blokes
Who star in toothpaste ads
‘I’m warning every kid out there
I’m making a confession
If you hope to be a stuntman…Don’t!
It’s not a good profession’
She’d gone now. Hurried away to the sound of the squeaking door. An emergency? Either that or she’d been scared away by his poetry, fleeing after that phone call, during which she might have said: This guy’s rubbish. I’ll see you shortly.
Matthew became aware of clapping. He gave a nod, then returned to his seat, but the host caught up with him, and he was forced to get up again to answer a couple of inane interview questions before deciding that he too should make an impromptu getaway. An Italian meal at Amaretti’s was too good to pass up. He had no desire to sit through the rest of the poetry evening.
Once the poet after him had been given her turn, and while the applause rose up, Matthew quietly left Room Five. He strode through the foyer, then dashed out into the night’s chill, into the dull glow of car-park street lamps, half hopeful of encountering a long-haired siren and wondering abstractedly if this was who Rosetta was.
Chapter Ten
<><> XXXI <><>
Eidred drifted through Elysium Glades looking curiously about. Exploring yesteryear’s forest was something she anticipated with eagerness upon the arrival of each Sun’s Day. Here in the Pre-Glory Century, a wildly free undergrowth twisted over and around and through every tree, rich and rampant and blooming, variant in shade and colour. The air was heavily fragrant.
Sprites of all shapes and sizes flitted and whirled. Flightier creatures took the form of misty blurs, darting around Eidred with the wispy agility of star-splodged moths. Only the earthed amongst the sprites were distinguishable, calmly absorbed in their care of the fauna.
‘Such a shame,’ Eidred said to herself. ‘Such a shame that sprites are rarely happened upon in The Century of Progress.’ And how dreadful it was, that her family—Eidred’s very own family—had been responsible for this. The timeframe to which the palace had travelled was far more picturesque than the one it was from, a painful reminder of the fey population’s ultimate diminishment.
Entrapping or destroying these gentle forest dwellers would, in a century gone by, cause the demise of much of these surroundings. The strange and lovely flower vines that Eidred had today admired would be gone forever within the next few season-cycles. A plant could not survive without its ethereal counterpart. Sprites were nature’s gardeners, and the gardens that formed their homes were soon to be savagely ripped apart.
Eidred sat herself down at the stream. It gleamed like an open treasure box, its reflections of the setting sun and exotic foliage not unlike the gold-encased emeralds that adorned one of the gowns in her dressing-quarter. ‘All to go,’ Eidred said, brushing away the teardrop that had trickled over her cheek. She did not recognise any of these waterside trees.
She heard murmurs then, amid the soft gurgling squeaks of playful undines: Gold’s Kin conversing in the oak shadow further up the stream.
Scanning to see who this might be, she caught sight of the curved edge of a brown wing beyond the oak’s trunk. A guard! Immediately she dashed to a nearby filigree tree and hid behind it. Her wander through Elysium’s forests had only just begun. She did not want to be discovered and escorted back to the palace by one of the brusque, winged troopers who guarded all of Gold’s Kin. She checked the sun and then slumped against the tree with a triumphant sigh. Only in its twenty-first degree. She had thought it to be later. No, she would not be ushered back home at this stage. The Grudellans had decreed she return by the twenty-second. The guard was not there on account of her. He was speaking with someone.
Intent on remaining unseen, Eidred scampered back to the sandy banks. She sat herself down again and dragged her fingers idly through the stream’s rippling surface, discovering soon after with dismay that she was still within earshot of the guard’s murmurs.
‘I shall fetch you some water, beloved,’ the guard was saying. Ah, so this was a gentleman speaking softly to his lady. Which guard would this have been? Eidred knew naught of any current royal courtship. The last known union had been that of her brother, the courting of a widowed Ehyptian queen.
Prior to that, one of Eidred’s older sisters had been wooed by an Atlantean solen. Eidred’s father was extravagantly pleased with this arrangement. Eidred’s sister had received only one previous offer of betrothal, and her future was beginning to look grim.
Eidred frowned at remembering Rahwor, one of the Solen’s grasping sorcerers, Rahwor who had dared to imagine himself becoming a prince through marriage. The Solen had regarded the sorcerer’s request as an insult borne of stupidity, although he did not berate him too harshly. Instead he punished Eidred’s sister for having attracted the interest of a scoundrel.
The young lady had insisted she’d given no encouragement. Her pterodactyl minders had scoffed. Being a marriageable royal woman, they’d said, was encouragement enough. She was then banished to the scullery and expected to scrub even more grime-smeared floors. ‘If you do not bewitch
a man of grand lineage,’ the Grudellans had screeched, ‘the Solen will have no choice other than to end your life.’ Eidred had learnt of this as a child, through listening to parlourmaid gossip. The event had occurred before her birth.
Twilight had descended in shades of cream and silver-edged pink. The guard’s voice rose heartily as he addressed his female companion. ‘May the stream water I collect for you be as sweet as morning dew.’
Eidred stifled a giggle and marvelled at the apparent chivalry. Quite the opposite to the gruffness displayed by most men of the royal court. Eidred again peered across at the oak. Could she determine who this was?
Her question was answered when the guard stepped partly out of the shadows, a former gatekeeping guard by the name of Storlem. He’d since been given the title of Messenger. Storlem’s other duties, Eidred recalled, involved the collecting together of heart-crystals at all magic-robbing ceremonies and issuing wands to palace bewitchers at crystallings. The woman with whom he spoke remained concealed. The guard had now left the shadows. He was striding to the stream, a goblet in his hand. Eidred gasped and ducked behind the fronds of a pale blue fern.
Once Storlem had returned to the oak, Eidred resumed her place on the bank. ‘And so tell me, beloved,’ she heard him say, ‘were you frightened when you first saw the Solen’s residence?’
First saw it? All but those who married into the family had been born in the Grudellan court. What had Storlem meant by this? Eidred listened for the answer.
The reply was warmly melodious, quite unlike the gravelly voices of Grudella. ‘We were mystified rather than frightened. A gold sphere appeared in our night sky. Many of us thought it to be a second sun. It descended upon a clearing and then spread across the surrounding land. It unfolded into many, many angles and we looked on in amazement.’
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