Crow Shine

by Alan Baxter

  “We’ve been here over a year, Greg. Both of us! I don’t know if I can stay another year.”

  “I have to go. I’ll see you tomorrow lunchtime.”

  The door slammed. Jenny stood staring at glossy white paint peeling off old wood, tears streaming down both cheeks. The pigs grunted and chickens squawked as the old diesel engine fired up. With a spin of dirt the sound quickly faded away. She stood alone in the kitchen, hands clasped at her breast, and cried.

  *

  Greg rubbed his forehead vigorously, his eyes red. “We had a fight, right before I left.”

  Bill Collins nodded, lips pursed. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Greg took a long, deep breath. “Sort of. Word will spread soon enough, you know how it is around here. I wondered if you might tactfully whisper in a few ears and make sure the truth of it gets out? I don’t want Jenny to be the subject of too much gossip. She left me a note.”

  “Of course I can do that, vicar. What did the note say?”

  “Just that she couldn’t take it out here, the remoteness of the community. Right after I left she called up her friend from town and had her come out and collect her. She said she was going from there back to Sydney. I found the note when I got back yesterday, and all her things gone.”

  Bill leaned forward, patting Greg’s knee. “A lot of people find it too much to stay out here. You should go after her, mate. She’s your wife. The people here will understand if you need a few days away.”

  “My first responsibility is to the community here, Bill. What would I do if I went after her? I don’t think I’d be able to convince her to come back. Maybe I should give her a bit of time to think. Hopefully she’ll call in a day or two, let me know where she is. We can talk it out some more.”

  “Well, all right then. Be sure to let me know if there’s anything else I can do.”

  “I will. Thanks, Bill.”

  *

  Greg piled everything onto wood in a small depression he had dug behind the pig pen. Dresses, shoes, handbag, purse, diary, anything that seemed relevant. Petrol glittered in the sun as he swung a red can back and forth, dowsing everything. He flicked a match and flames leapt up, hot and powerful. Nylon gathered and twisted quickly in the heat, patent leather blackened instantly.

  He smiled and turned to watch the pigs, jostling and shouldering each other noisily. “In the name of my Father,” he whispered. “My Father, who art the Fallen, hallowed be thy name.” He picked up his dark grey shirt and clean, white dog collar from the fence, turned back towards the house, stretching expansively as he went. He laughed loud and long, though only the pigs and the chickens heard him.

  Fear Is The Sin

  Darryl picked his way through the placards and angry faces, eyes down. He tried not to read the signs, but couldn’t avoid them all.

  SMUT SMUT SMUT

  Keep Satan out of our Theatre

  Exodus 22:18 - Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live

  He watched his worn out shoes overtake each other, saw the tattered trouser legs and equally worn shoes of the protesters. Breathed a sigh of relief as he stepped through the stage door into dim light and the smell of dust and face-paint.

  “Darryl, darling, you’re late!”

  He took off his threadbare hat, gripped it nervously against his chest. “Sorry, Cynthia.”

  “You’re here now. Let’s get started.”

  Other players gathered on the stage, a tense air of expectation in the huge, empty room. Cynthia slumped into a front row seat, a wave of silk dress and long, shining black hair. Emerald green eyes pierced the thespian gloom.

  “Right, my lovelies. Today we rehearse the forest scene. Remember, we’re transporting these people, these poor desolate souls. We’re giving them an hour or two away from everything out there.” She gestured expansively at the walls. “Everything horrible stops at those doors. In here it’s enchantment. Darryl, take your place. You’re scared, but enraptured, remember? Let’s go.”

  *

  “You okay, sweetheart?” Cynthia asked after the rehearsal.

  Darryl gazed at his toes, heart hammering. “I’m so grateful for this opportunity . . . ”

  She lifted his chin on a forefinger, stared deep into his eyes. “You’re a prodigy, nothing to thank me for. What’s the problem?”

  “Those people outside.”

  “The Jesus freaks? They’re harmless, darling. They hide behind old-fashioned religion because they’re scared to let go. They’re uptight, closed.”

  “But this show, it is fantasy and . . . and . . . ”

  “And sex? Fantasy and sex aren’t witchcraft.” Cynthia’s eyes sparkled, her smile weakened his knees. “This is 1936, Darryl, not the dark ages. Those people out there living in tent cities in the park, starving in dirty alleyways, no jobs, no prospects, no hope; we’re doing this for them. One penny at the door means everyone can have a break from the horror of reality. Those freaks outside think suffering is godliness. They’re frightened fools.”

  Darryl couldn’t bear the intensity of her eyes, looked down. Then he couldn’t avoid the swell of her chest, slim waist, curve of thigh, all draped in gossamer silk. “It’s not wrong?”

  “Would you rather play a straight, boring piece to a mostly empty room, or play something exciting to a packed house? We give the people succour for a penny. And you’re a working actor, how many can say that right now?”

  She ran one finger softly along his jaw and everything felt okay. She was right.

  *

  “Dress rehearsal, darlings! Or should I say, undress rehearsal!”

  Laughter and murmurs swept across the stage.

  “Opening night tomorrow, let’s make it count. And Darryl, when we get to the final scene, when Claire walks out centre-stage naked, you’re supposed to stare.” More muffled laughter. “Don’t be embarrassed. You shatter the beautiful illusion of your incredible acting. You’re enchanted, she’s enchanting, lose yourself in her. And take the audience with you!”

  The three suits in the otherwise empty auditorium scowled. As the players took their places, Cynthia sashayed past them, trailing fingers and glances. Surely her enthusiasm alone couldn’t stop the show from being closed before it opened.

  All the lines were perfect, the lights mesmerising. Darryl lost himself in the surreal, strange words and haunting melodies of the songs Cynthia had taught them. Transported to the decadence of the Underworld, seduction by Claire in her beautiful nakedness began to feel natural.

  The show was beautiful. But it didn’t matter, not now. The censorship officials would shut them down. He looked past the wings. The three suits surrounded Cynthia, their faces serious. But their eyes danced, alive.

  “We will be forced close this production if you push the limits,” one said, though his lips twitched in a smile.

  Cynthia leaned forward, kissed each of them on the cheek. They drifted away, carried on clouds of subtle bliss.

  *

  Dirty faces and ragged clothes in the street shattered the womb-like calm of the theatre. Angry people with angry placards besieged him, hounded him, shouted, “Decadence, evil, corruption, Satan!”

  “Please,” he called out. “Don’t be so quick to judge. Don’t you want some escape from this terrible reality? Just a penny each, see for yourselves!”

  He hurried away under a barrage of abuse and outrage.

  *

  “Nothing like a little controversy to fill a house,” Cynthia said. She smiled at the cast, gathered, ready. “They’ve all parted with a penny they can’t afford for this, so give them everything.”

  In the quiet moments of some scenes Darryl heard the protesters outside, chanting in unison. No one cared. When opportunity allowed he squinted past the stage lights to see hundreds of enraptured faces. People swayed gently in time to the music as the girls sang. He felt their presence as he played his part. Lose yourself. Take the audience with you.

  Quiet “oohs” and “ahhs” esca
ped the audience, a thousand eyes almost glazed, unblinking, mesmerised.

  Cynthia stood at the side of stage, arms wide, facing the rows of people, hidden only by a velvet curtain. She drew great, deep breaths.

  *

  The after-party was raucous. The high of performance and the energy from the audience, was intoxicating. The booze Cynthia supplied made the girls giggle and Darryl soporific.

  The morning brought reviews, universally positive. Anyone who had seen the show couldn’t praise it highly enough and only those making guesses from the outside continued to protest.

  And the Jesus freaks, out in the street, kept up their vigil, kept making their signs and their opposition felt.

  Every night another performance, every night a packed house. The positive reviews increased, the queues at the door grew ever longer. Cynthia employed a man to walk the line and count heads, sending everyone past five hundred back to their tents or cardboard boxes. After three nights they started counting to six hundred and the Standing Room Only at the back was packed every time, fire regulations be damned. And the people gazed, swayed with the music, and Cynthia stood at the side of stage and basked in the adoration.

  *

  By the start of the second week Darryl’s inhibitions flowed away. He looked forward to the nudity and the enacted lovemaking, let himself be carried by the ethereal song. Every performance became an exercise in tense anticipation, waiting for the finale. When the girls sang, Claire walked out in glorious undress and the audience collectively moaned. A thin silk curtain swept down, the lights behind threw silhouettes, and the cast play-acted love until the lights faded to black. As the audience cried out for more the girls continued to sing, and Cynthia soaked it all up.

  With each performance the silhouette play became less acting, more loving. Darryl’s hand stopped miming a touch for the shadows and he drew his palms tenderly over Claire’s breasts and thighs. They stopped leaning near each other, smiling while the shadows looked like kisses, and embraced, kissed urgently and passionately.

  At the end of the second week, as the lights dimmed, Darryl watched Cynthia lean back, mouth half-open, shuddering in pleasure drawn from the audience. He slipped from Claire’s gentle embrace in the darkness and crept across the stage, slipped into the stage-side curtain beside Cynthia. She emanated heat.

  He reached out, took her hand, and an electric furnace thrashed through him. He gasped as Cynthia turned. She regarded him with eyes of swirling green, vortices of deepest ocean. Her half-open mouth hissed laughter, a split tongue danced behind her teeth. Darryl felt the audience, became awash with the desire of every person in every row. Their lust, their fear, their guilt, flooded into Cynthia. And from Cynthia into him. It engorged him, filled his soul with burning. And it felt good.

  *

  Darryl walked out into dull rain and jeers from the Jesus freaks. He smiled, head held high, read their placards. Their abuse faltered in the face of his nonchalance. One pretty blonde, in a nearly clean dress, hair plastered to her face by the crying sky, tilted her head as he caught her eye. He placed a palm, ever so gently, against her cheek, gave her a little of what he’d taken from Cynthia. She sank into him, eyes softening.

  “You’d be perfect in the show,” he whispered.

  “I’ve always wanted to act, but it’s a sin.” Her voice trembled near his ear, her breath hot.

  “Fear is a sin,” he told her. “Let it go.”

  The Chart of the Vagrant Mariner

  Reeve slammed a pewter mug across the drunken sailor’s face, knocked him senseless to the floor. He grabbed a handful of the man’s greasy hair, hauled him up, and opened his throat with a polished dagger.

  “Anyone else care to challenge my captaincy of the Scarlet Wind or my ability to lead?” he roared. Spittle flew from the depths of his thick black and gray beard. His eyes were shadowed in his dark skin as he scanned the room.

  Heavy quiet sank through the Mermaid’s Tail, the wharfside pub that was so often our home ashore. The only sound was the water lapping gently at the support poles beneath the floor. Everyone either stared at the pool of blood spreading beneath the unfortunate sailor or looked into tankards or laps. None met the captain’s steel gaze. Candlelight flickered off timber walls.

  “Then I ask again. Who will join me and replenish the ranks thinned by the Royal Navy? Who’ll step up for their share of bounty? The British may try to clean up these waters, but we shall show them their will is unwelcome here!”

  A few wary fellows stepped forward and, led by their confidence, more joined them. The promise of wealth has often blinded men to their better judgment and will do forever more, I’m sure. Before long the captain was sat at a scored and rickety table signing tickets for a hearty new crew and I knew we would sail again on the morning tide.

  “Boy,” Reeve said quietly.

  I quickly stood from my place at his feet. “Yes, Captain.”

  “Take these tickets to the first mate and arrange a measure of liquor for each new soul signed up.” He raised his voice. “To show my gratitude and good will.” This was met with murmurs and nods of satisfaction. These people thought they had made a good decision. There were far worse captains to serve under, though perhaps not many. A man with vengeance burning inside him cares little for others in the end.

  When I returned from the Scarlet Wind I saw a scrawny man, deep in his cups, had crawled toward the murdered sailor. He reached out a finger and began tracing a strange pattern in the thick, dark blood pooled across the floor. The design, more than the act, made me uneasy in a way I couldn’t explain.

  The captain noticed my gaze and followed it, saw the madman drawing. “The hell are you doing there?”

  At the sound of Reeve’s low voice, the filthy wretch leaped up and scurried away, the pub door banging in his wake. Reeve stared at the marks he’d left for a long moment, then said, “Get him.” He could stop a charging stallion with his roar, but my captain usually spoke in a tone so low, it demanded respect. It forced others to silence themselves and concentrate to listen.

  I hared out the door and onto the rough-hewn docks. My quarry hurried into the warren of streets that led up toward the town and I gave chase. To lose him would incur Reeve’s wrath and I had no desire to risk that. The night was hot and sticky, the whirrs and cries of insects and other nocturnal critters disturbed the dense heat. I would be glad to get back out on the ocean, away from the humid stillness of land. There weren’t many of us left after our last run-in with His Majesty’s best, so the intake of fresh blood was essential. It was possible to sail a three-masted barque like the Scarlet Wind with as few as four or five men - assuming the wind didn’t change, but of course, it always did. Most of those lost and a good proportion of the replacements were escaped slaves, a few European mongrels thrown in, men and women of many a mixed breed. Reeve didn’t care, he has ever seen the value of all people. A former slave himself, so the rumors go, and it’s claimed he ate his owner’s heart before taking to the seas. I believe I am the son of slaves myself, but I can never know that for sure as it was Esme told me so, and she’s no longer here to ask.

  I turned a corner past a stinking tannery and nearly barreled into the scrawny man I chased. He stood motionless, staring at a wall, face twisted in confusion. I drew my small dagger, a gift from Reeve and my only possession, and grabbed the vagrant’s elbow. It was slick with sweat and grease. “You need to come with me,” I said, as kindly as I could.

  He looked at me and frowned. It was no effort to drag him unprotesting back to the Mermaid’s Tail.

  Reeve stared over his tankard as I hauled the man inside. My captain drank and drank but appeared as ever unaffected by the booze. I had seen him drink more than any man should be able, but I had never seen him drunk. His constitution was as infamous as his ferocity.

  I pushed the bemused man into the chair opposite Reeve. He sank, resignation writ across his features. His gaze fell to a puddle of spilled beer on the tabletop and s
lowly he reached out, dragged a finger through the liquid. It was the same disquieting sequence of circles and lines the fellow had traced in the blood. It curdled my mind to look upon it and I turned away.

  Reeve leaned forward and the man flinched back, but I put a heavy palm on his shoulder to keep him seated. “Hold there, friend,” Reeve said. “Here.” He offered his battered tankard and the man looked at it as if it might strike him down. “Drink,” Reeve said softly.

  A thin and shaking hand reached out, took the mug, and the strange artist swallowed. Cautious at first, then with gusto. When the cup was drained, Reeve took it back. “What’s your name?”

  “Jenks.” The voice was cracked and strained.

  “And what’s that you’re drawing, Jenks?”

  The skinny, filthy shoulders rose and fell. Jenks looked at what he’d done as if it was entirely foreign to him. The beer shifted and the lines merged and slowly vanished.

  Reeve turned and yelled, “Bella!”

  The barmaid staggered in, rubbing at eyes as tired as my own but with a smile plastered on for his benefit. Reeve held out his tankard. “Refill this, and bring another for my friend.”

  Bella frowned. “Your friend is mad and penniless, yet he always loiters here and begs drinks and food from good folk.” She raised a small, scarred fist and Jenks winced.

  Reeve caught her wrist. “For now, he is my friend and I will have a drink for him. You know my coin is good. And bring me paper and a pencil.”

  Bella’s expression clearly betrayed her displeasure but she did as she was bid. Reeve offered Jenks the fresh tankard and, when the desperate fellow reached to take it, pulled it away. “You draw me that picture again, here on this paper, clear and true. Then you can have this and as many more as you can swallow.”

  Jenks looked from the paper to the tankard and back several times before reluctantly picking up the pencil. Eyes squeezed almost shut, as though the act pained him, he scrawled away and the arrangement of lines and curves, clearer than any time before, truly made my stomach squirm and my breath catch in my throat. Even Reeve with his hearty constitution grimaced as he gazed at it. When it was done, Jenks grabbed the tankard and swallowed it down with loud, frantic gulps.