by Geoff Ryman
When the train came, the girls all ran, though they didn't need to, the thick heels of their shoes clopping like horses' hooves. They swept themselves and Michael into the carriage on a gust of giggles.
Michael sat down and let everything rain around him.
A fat businessman with bags under his eyes like croissants was gently going to sleep on the shoulder of a young man with slicked-up hair. The young man gently tapped him.
A girl was standing fast asleep against her boyfriend as if slow-dancing. She was thin and pale, almost translucent, with a slight contented smile. It was the smile she would wear lying next to him in their own bed.
And the settling seemed to stop, and Michael came to rest finally on the floor of the ocean, where it was deep and cool and calm and silent.
He loved them all. It had nothing to do with lust, or feeling safely superior, or being merely drunk. He was clear-headed, more clear-headed than he had been in a long time. He saw the girls wanted fun and friends and to be noticed and not to be dull before their time. Michael wished they would always be friends, and always go out, and never go sour from bitterness. He yearned for the sleeping man finally to find family or friends. The young man with the slicked hair had decided to let him go on sleeping, and that it did him no harm to leave him be. Michael wished that people would give the lad the same leeway, and that he would lose his slightly tense, pinched air.
In the quiet, in the peace, it seemed to him that he knew their stories and could guess how far they could go, and loved them like a father loves: from a distance, with best wishes.
It was promiscuous this love, it went beyond lust and romance and making families. Michael moved beyond biology.
The train pulled into the next station and Michael saw its notice slip past like someone trying to sidle unnoticed into the bathroom. He sat and waited for a while as the engine whirred, and he saw the sign partially obscured by the window frame: '… ourt Road'.
Jesus Christ, it's Tottenham Court Road! His stop. Just before the doors closed, Michael jumped off. It's 2.30 in the morning, Michael, you can't go missing your stop. He was tired and strolled towards the Northern Line. The balloon bobbed along after him, still tugging at his hand.
Just beyond the arch to the northbound platform, he heard doors rumbling shut. Oh shit, he'd just missed the train. He jumped forward in time to see the grey and red train sigh away, moaning gently.
The platform was empty.
And there was a rush of wind as if another train were coming, and someone stepped out of the moving air. Michael's body knew the green gym uniform before his mind did. He jumped with recognition.
'Hello there,' said a familiar voice. 'You've stopped coming in for your workout.' It was the Cherub.
'No time, I'm afraid.'
'You've managed to lose some weight though. It suits you.'
'Thank you.'
The Cherub stirred, looking chagrined, and glanced about him. 'I'll try to keep my clothes on this time, shall I?'
It was good to see him. 'So, how is Tony?'
'Tony's fine,' said the Angel. 'Him and the girlfriend are going to move up North. She wants to open a restaurant. You might like to pop in and say goodbye to him. Since, you know, you liked him so much.'
'Thank you. Maybe I will.'
The Angel chuckled. 'Maybe you won't.'
Michael ventured, 'And how are you?'
The Angel looked pained. 'Me. I'm a bit different.'
Michael nodded. 'You become different.'
The Angel had a pleading look.
Michael felt love. 'Just ask me,' he whispered.
'I don't want my life to be just working in a restaurant, showing people to tables.'
Michael asked, 'Does that mean Tony doesn't want it either?'
The Angel shook his head. 'No! No way, he loves Jacqui, he wants a family. So, he makes sacrifices. But that doesn't mean that part of him… me, I guess… part of him wants adventure. He wants to go places, see things. And… and I thought I could go there for him. And he could see it, in his dreams, like when we made love, he saw that in his dreams.'
'He saw it for real.'
'Right. He saw it for real.' The Angel had passionate eyes. Need.
'Where,' Michael asked. 'Where do you want to go?' I can do this, Michael realized. My God, what a thing to be able to do.
The Angel's face was set. 'I want to go to Tibet. I want him to see one of those big monasteries. He wants to see Tibet, and, well, I know he never will. I can see all the way to the end you see.'
'Tibet…' agreed Michael. Lust pulls you out, pulls you into becoming someone else.
'Can I go now?' the Angel asked, glancing at his watch.
'Yes, now,' promised Michael. 'All you have to do is leave the platform, and when you turn left at the Way Out sign, you'll be in Tibet.'
'Brill!' said the Angel, and shook his hand. 'You're a star, mate. Thanks. Thanks a lot.'
'Say hello to Tony for me.'
'Sure,' the Angel promised. 'I'll make sure he sees it.' The Cherub looked anxiously at his watch and he turned, and broke into a half run. Michael watched his broad back retreat down the platform. The Cherub stopped and waved just outside the exit.
'Do you know why I called you up?' Michael shouted to him.
The Cherub nodded. 'Because you know it's not going to last much longer,' he called.
'Thanks,' said Michael, to the Cherub, to the miracle itself. Michael held a little hand up, a gentle sigh of a wave. He still held the dolphin balloon and it dipped in farewell.
The Cherub turned left and was gone.
Someone tapped Michael on the shoulder. He turned, and there was Henry, red-faced and panting. 'Gotcha,' Henry said, grinning.
Michael was expecting to see an Angel. This Henry's hair dangled differently and he wore a brown sweater with a hole in it. But there was no doubt in Michael's mind that he had called this one up too.
'You're Stumpy,' said Michael, and he found he was grinning.
'As much as anyone is,' replied the Angel. His cheeks glowed silver and sweaty, as if he had run to catch up with Michael. They both grinned and their grins latched as though their braces had locked.
'My God, you're pretty,' said Michael. He couldn't help himself. He took the Angel's hand and to his delight it squeezed back, and the Angel's cheeks glowed even brighter. Michael was a bit pissed and that allowed him to feel his own delight. He glanced up the platform. What the heck. There was no one there, and anyway, it was New Year's Eve. Without any doubt that the Angel would want him, Michael pulled Stumpy to him and kissed him. The Angel shuddered in surprise, and then his mouth worked.
Stumpy was delicious. He tasted of cinnamon. He tasted of celebration. Michael was slightly stunned. He had never kissed someone and felt taste as communication. He pulled back, and looked into Stumpy's beautiful nut-brown eyes.
'I'm embarrassed,' said Stumpy.
'I'm not,' said Michael.
'I didn't say I didn't like it.'
'I'm enraptured,' said Michael, and it was true. He laughed and pulled back and bounced the dolphin balloon up and down in his grasp.
There was answering laughter. Two men settled next to them on the platform and it took a moment for Michael to realize who they were. The Chinese Thai who had danced and grown up to run a plant nursery cradled Mustafa the Afghan. Michael laughed.
'These are Angels,' he announced to Stumpy. 'These are two more of my dear, dear Angels.' And he pulled them to him, and quickly kissed them both.
Stumpy's eyes widened. 'These are them. These are more of them?' He reached out to touch them, and the Thai seized his hand. 'Happy New Year!' the Thai said, syllable by memorized syllable, and dipped his head.
'It's love isn't it?' said Stumpy.
The train arrived but the Thai and the Afghan did not get on it. They waved as if at the departure of a ship, as if saying goodbye. The train pulled away, and they were dragged slowly past the window, and Michael's eyes were suddenly stung as if
pricked by bees, and he could not think why.
'I think we must have caught the last train,' he said.
Stumpy smiled up at him. 'This is going to be a very nice New Year's.' He had to shout over the noise of the train. 'A miraculous New Year's.' His eyes were unbelieving and admiring and wondering.
They got off at Camden Town. At the foot of the escalator, the Angel enfolded himself under Michael's arm. The escalator lifted them up towards heaven like the machinery of an eighteenth-century opera.
Outside in the bracing air, the dolphin balloon grinned wide-eyed like a welcoming baby. Michael asked his Angel, who still stayed bleary within his arm, 'Shall we let him go?'
'Aw. Why?' protested Stumpy.
'Because if we let him go, we'll see him swim among the stars,' said Michael.
Stumpy smiled. 'Yes,' he said. 'Balloon liberation. Free all balloons now!'
Michael let the dolphin go. It bobbed for a moment, its eyes still on them as if reluctant, and then it turned away and began to rise.
A drunken man stopped beside them. He was a vicar in a dog collar. 'What a beautiful thing!' he fluted. They all watched together. The dolphin was silver and white and held the reflected light as if it carried candles. 'Fancy a swig?' the vicar asked, and held out a small hip flask of whisky. Both Stumpy and Michael drank. The dolphin gleamed until finally it was one of the stars themselves.
'Which one do you think he is?' Michael asked.
'All of them,' said Stumpy. 'He's become all of them. Or maybe all of them were dolphins all along.'
They walked north with the vicar, who was as pink as a rose, and they all began to sing 'Jerusalem'. 'And did those feet in ancient time?' They parted at the empty market street, waving goodbye.
Stumpy went all floppy, his hair lashing Michael's arms.
'I'm sorry. I don't usually drink,' he said.
'That's OK,' whispered Michael.
'I've never met anyone like you,' said the Angel, his eyes squiffy.
'Well, I've met Henry, who is like you.'
Stumpy nodded yes, a wide grin on his face. 'He's me when I'm older. He says I ought to become a politician. I think that's what he did. He even told me which Labour MP I should ask to work with.' This little Angel was very proud of himself. 'I'm going to do that.' He seemed to come into focus. 'The trouble with protests is that nothing happens. Nothing changes. That's not good enough.' His eyes had the hunger, the light that Michael had seen in Henry's eyes, to change things for the better.
Michael thought he had never seen anyone as beautiful. He said, 'That just happens to be my front door.'
They stumbled up the stairway and into the front room, and Michael switched on the light and the Picassos on the wall seemed to leap into life. Stumpy saw them and seemed to think the locale had painted them.
'I love Camden Town. It's like it could have been posh and rich, but it decided not to be. So it's full of good things and it's sleazy at the same time.' The Angel put his hand on Michael's breast. 'Like you.'
There was something in the Angel's eyes that had been given too quickly and too completely for Michael not to feel overwhelmed.
He found he chuckled and ducked. 'You're drunk. Let's get you to bed.'
And they thumped up the final staircase.
Stumpy undressed as Henry always did, slowly and methodically in a way that meant all the clothes in the morning would look ironed. And that somehow cancelled out any doubt that he was anything other than what he said he was.
'I'm too sleepy for sex,' he said simply. 'Do you mind?'
'I don't think,' said Michael, 'that this is about sex.'
'It's about dolphins,' said Stumpy and grinned.
Stumpy slipped out of his trousers and his underwear and his skin all over was almost as silver as the dolphin's. He stumbled against the bed and then into it.
'Goodnight, my love,' said Michael. It was that quick and that simple and that unthinking.
Stumpy reached back over himself and took Michael's hand. Michael snapped off the light, and as heavy as curtains, sleep fell. In a dream, he looked up into the sky, and it was full of dolphins, and knew somehow it was a dawn sky.
Later, there was a movement in Michael's head. It was not entirely pleasant to feel the flesh inside his skull flex like a muscle. He woke up, and everything was dusky grey, in a different year. The blackbirds were singing their unexpectedly beautiful song, though they lived south in the Gardens next to Michael's old life.
Michael's mouth was dry from dehydration. Dreamily he stood up and padded out of his bed. And he felt the realities part again, as a series of curtains.
Dropping away.
He was padding down the corridor of the condo in California. He heard his father snore. Rest in peace, he murmured. I will always love you and you will always love me. Somewhere in eternity we are father and son running on that beach, and it doesn't matter what kind of love I feel for you.
And he moved past the little table with the telephone to turn left, leaving Philip behind him in their big Lancashire bed. He turned at the doorway, to see him asleep in their old flat. Well, what do you know, baby? We both finally grew up.
And he slipped downstairs towards the sitting room in the Camden flat and the expressionistic toilet. Who had left the lights on? He thumped down the steps and was only mildly surprised to see there was a party. It was all right, he realized. He had been having a New Year's party of his own.
'Hello, hello!' said James the Irish monk, merrily. He was wearing a lumberjack shirt now, instead of monk's robes, and a handsome moustached man in plus fours canoodled next to him. 'This is my George. I wanted you to meet him. He came to the monastery. He followed me all the way to California and I just went away with him to Big Sur. ' They both had grey hair.
Michael smiled, pleased for them.
'Ah!' A voice. 'Ah, my old friend!' And Michael was suddenly enveloped in Picasso's arms. 'Look, look at what you made possible for me!' Picasso threw an arm up towards the wall of beautiful paintings. 'Here, here, did you see this?' He pushed a leaflet at him, glossy and in four colours. It was for an exhibition. 'MODERNIZING ART' it said, and showed a computer screen full of glowing colours. It was Michael's own mirror face.
Al pressed against him, and stepped back and was enfolded in the generous arms of Mark. 'We've just realized we should have met because of you,' said Mark. 'You and I would have become lovers for a while and afterwards Al and I would get together.'
'And then we'd both be alive,' said Al.
'Can you be together now?'
'We always were. That was the potential,' said Al. He seized Michael's hand hard. 'And that's as real as if it had actually happened.'
Someone put on music. The old Oceanside record player sang out Cinderella.
Bottles came dancing towards Michael, and took him up mischievously in her arms. She held her nose up in the air, miming Broadway posh.
Billie Holiday leaned next to the record player. She was older now, in the 1950s, and she was wearing a blue satin dress.
'Man,' Billie said, chuckling to herself. 'How can anybody sing that stuff? It sticks in your throat.'
She tried anyway. Billie sang Julie Andrews as if it were true in her rough old voice.
It was a sweet song about falling in love. Billie gave it uncertainty. Billie turned it into a song about last chances.
The old music swelled, and the two voices blended, hopeful, exhausted and innocent, exalted. The sweet long ended.
'Happy New Year,' growled Billie and held up an unsteady toast for them all.
And there was Henry.
Henry was weeping with joy. 'It's all right Michael,' he said, shaking. 'It really is all right. Everything will be fine. Really.' Michael hugged him, to soothe him.
'I love you,' said Michael.
'I love you too,' said Henry.
Michael said, 'You know who's upstairs?'
Henry nodded yes and smiled.
'You planned this!' exc
laimed Michael, realizing.
Henry closed his eyes once and opened them. 'I can see all the way to the end,' he said. His eyes were as steady as car headlights. 'I am,' he said, 'there.' And he pointed far away, beyond. Michael knew what he meant: Always.
'I gotta pee,' explained Michael.
Michael stumbled out of his sitting room into the dark landing with the floor that would ram slivers into his feet. Parched, headachy and hungover, he slumped down on his own cold-seated toilet, and held his head in his hands.
He could feel a movement in the structured fat of his brain, a kind of kink, as if it had shifted gears. Abruptly the music was turned off.
Suddenly it was dawn for real, grey and quiet.
Michael wiped himself and padded out into his neglected sitting room. It was empty and quiet and dark. God, it was drab. It was like a hangover after a party was over. Why was it so dull suddenly? It wasn't just that the lights were off.
Then he saw why.
The walls were blank. All the Picassos were gone. So was the desk that was the only thing Picasso had directly carried up the steps himself.
And suddenly, eyes wide with terror, Michael knew what that meant. It's over. My God, it's over. And then he remembered Stumpy. He had not got the Angel's home address. And he couldn't ask Henry; Henry would be gone. Would the real Stumpy have any trace of memory of meeting Michael? What if he couldn't find Stumpy again?
Michael ran up the stairs and darted round the lintel of the doorway into the bedroom. And he saw the bed was full. A pale, silver arm reached across the empty sheet for Michael. Everything else had gone, but the real Stumpy was still there. Then Michael knew what that meant, too.
***
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Document creation date: 28.10.2008
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