The Fall of Chance

by McGowan, Terry

  The music started, its jaunty notes held in check for the moment by a deliberate, slow tempo. The circling march was almost funereal. He saw the flicker of the first couple’s spin; the glimmer of something interesting around a long bend.

  He counted off the couples’ twirls: one, two, three. All the while he was getting nearer to the point of activity. At sixteen, he could see Crystal. At eighteen, they joined. He slipped his arm around her and it was the first time he’d done so.

  He hadn’t realised the material was so thin. As his arm glided along the silky surface, he could feel her body beneath as though there was nothing there. He could feel the softness of her flesh, the warmth of her blood, even the outline of her bones as he nestled his arm on her hip. Practice dances had been with girls but they hadn’t worn dresses like this.

  It was exciting but she felt painfully frail, like she was a little bird in his hand that would crack under too much pressure. As he plucked her into the air and swung her around, he feared he would break her.

  It was a relief when she touched the ground, her feather-light feet meeting the floor soundlessly. They walked side by side with Crystal on the inside of the circle, Unt’s arm still around her waste and hands stretched and joined ahead of them.

  Once more, Unt looked into her face, longing for an answering glance. But Crystal’s head was fixed pointedly forward, posture as formal as a professional dancer. She danced with technical perfection and you could suppose she was just focused on the dance but Unt knew it was more than that.

  It was almost a relief when he deposited her at the next circle but there was an equal measure of fear. He felt relief that he was free of that awful tension but fear that it had been cast off so easily. He felt relief when he swept up his next partner and felt a body he didn’t feel he would break. He felt fear that Crystal would find more pleasure in the next man who collected her.

  He burried those fears and told himself he was reading too much into a simple dance. But they were symbols that he was reading and symbols have a force of their own. Symbols aren’t just images with a borrowed meaning: there’s a truth behind them.

  The dance moved on, the speed increased and the girls came and went. Again and again, Unt rejoined with Crystal but each time was quicker and there was less time to dwell on it. The opportunity to think receded in proportion to the tempo as it became more and more necessary to just focus on living the dance. Unt welcomed it, and lived through his body instead of his mind.

  By the end of the dance, the routine was bordering on chaos. Legs made weary by work and unsteady by drink were struggling to keep up the pace. Every stumble and misstep was met good-naturedly but the dance was on the point of collapse. But just when it seemed sure to break, the music stopped. Unt found himself in exactly the same place as he’d started: only everyone’s shattered appearance proved the last twenty minutes had even taken place.

  “Well done, Lovers,” came the voice of the band master. “Go find your partners and have yourselves a break. We’ll do the same and we’ll see you again shortly.”

  The circles disintegrated as couples sought to reunite. Unt looked for Crystal and eventually found her. She looked like she hadn’t moved since the dancing stopped.

  “Hey,” he greeted her with a tap on the shoulder. His sweat was freely running from the effort but Crystal seemed unaffected. It was like she’d been picked up and tossed about without any exertion on her part.

  “Oh. Hi,” she answered.

  “That was an ordeal, wasn’t it?”

  “It was.”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “Oh, yes. I suppose so.”

  For the first time in his life, Unt had an appreciation of how Bull felt when faced with his own reticence.

  “Do you want to take a rest?” he tried.

  “I guess. I suppose we should take my parents their drinks.” It was the first time Unt had heard her speak like there was a person attached to the words.

  “Ok. I’ll fetch them and catch you up.” Unt wasn’t keen to rejoin the in-laws.

  He paused, uncertain. “See you shortly, then.” He rushed his head forward to peck her cheek. He only did it because it was what he guessed a husband was supposed to do but she reacted like she’d been stung with ice. It was an instinctive reaction, one quickly covered, but he saw it and it hurt. He was already walking away when her soft voice said, “See you.”

  * * * *

  Unt was glad to see that the drinks had been removed while they were dancing. It gave him an excuse to go back to the bar and kill as much time as possible before the next dance.

  When he returned, his new family were sat, perfectly quiet, like they’d had nothing to say to each other this whole time. Unt supposed that if you lived in a house together you maybe ran out of things to say but every meal he’d had with Bull’s family said otherwise. Theirs was a happy chaos: this was a sombre reflection.

  Crystal and her parents had set up camp in one corner like strangers in a foreign land. Unt considered himself a reluctant dancer and a reluctant socialiser but Landress and Ulson took it to another level. They were in the room but they were proof against the party atmosphere. They just sat there, inert. Crystal, dutiful daughter that she was, tended her parents like being aloof was an illness.

  Unt doled out the punches and sat down, reluctantly entering their vigil. He tried to make conversation with Ulson, then Landress but it was hopeless. They seemed to have the will to be polite but he could find nothing to share and connect with them on.

  The punch in his hand was the one thing that was easy. It was tempting to knock it back as quickly as possible but he wanted to keep a level head. Partly it was because he didn’t want to make a fool of himself in front of Crystal’s parents and partly it was because he wanted to be capable when the party ended and it was time to seal the marriage.

  That future felt like a huge chunk of the reason behind the stilted conversation. How did you talk casually with a man when you both knew that at the end of the evening, you’d take his daughter and her virginity with it? There was an elephant in the room and Unt was its physical manifestation. The only way to remove it was to remove himself and for that he needed an excuse. The only decent one to hand was going to the bar and to make that work, he needed an empty glass.

  He was one gulp away from being there and it was a temptation he had to resist. With nothing to say and nothing to do except raise the glass to his lips, putting it away was all too easy.

  He paced himself by making sure that he always had more than Ulson. Unfortunately, Ulson seemed to need drink like a desert plant. His punch just sat there and so did Unt, willing the time to the next dance.

  He thought he might have better luck when he tried to talk to Landress but he was disappointed. It was las though the will was there but she couldn’t access it anymore. She was a social woman who could no longer be sociable because of her husband.

  That worried Unt: he could see something of himself in Ulson and he didn’t want to be the cause of the same thing happening to Crystal. On the other hand, her parents’ marriage seemed a happy one so maybe those similarities weren’t such a curse.

  * * * *

  The day became a cycle of dancing, drinking and silence. Each dance was a relief from the tedium, a chance to be with Crystal and a chance to worry about her happiness. Each break brought a return to that quiet corner of social pariahs.

  Everything was dominated by the clock. Half of every hour was taken up with a dance, half by recovery and Unt viewed the clock’s hands like double-edged swords. Every swipe of the minute hand was a step toward the end of this torment but when the party ended it would be time for Unt and Crystal to seal their union.

  Unt watched the room with its sea of happy faces. They were all looking at the same end to the evening but he seemed to be the only one who was nervous about it.

  As the night wore on, Unt looked on the prospect with fluctuating dread and excitement. His uncomfortable situat
ion did nothing to lessen his desire for Crystal. It was all he could do not to stare at her, be consumed by her.

  He was honest enough with himself to say he lusted after her but he hoped that what he was feeling was something more. Unt felt sensations that he’d heard used to describe love but could he really love her already?

  The trouble with lust is that it tries very hard to convince you that it’s something else: Unt knew this, but he also knew that his chest was being sucked in toward his breastbone and that every fibre of his being was being drawn taut to the centre of himself. That, surely, was something more than just physical desire, wasn’t it?

  * * * *

  Midnight loomed larger with the stroke of every hour, each number marked out like a funeral gong. Every dance was a little flurry of distraction, every respite an intake of breath in anticipation of the next death knell.

  In the interval after the nine o’ clock dance, the evening meal was presented. Food had been available all day but at this late stage, the centrepiece of that rolling meal was finally wheeled out. A giant hog, spit-roasted and succulent was brought out with great chunks of bread for everyone to share.

  Crystal saw him looking. “Go get some, if you want,” she said.

  Unt snapped at the opportunity to escape. “Would you like some too?” he asked.

  “No thank you, I’ll be fine,” she answered in a dreamy sort of way.

  As he stood unsteady in the queue, Unt realised he was feeling the drink a fair bit now. He hoped the hog would soak up some of the effects so he got a large share for himself.

  As he sat down to eat, he already knew that he wouldn’t make the next dance but there was one more to come and that would be the all-important closing number.

  He was halfway through his sandwich when the dance was called and a moment later, he felt a presence on his shoulder. He looked up with a start and saw Rob.

  Unt hadn’t seen Rob all day and it wasn’t for want of looking. Throughout the party, a part of his brain had been on sentry duty, ever-wary of the threat but now, when his guard had dropped, the enemy had stolen into his camp.

  His body wanted to flinch, like it expected a blow, but his brain, dulled by food and drink, didn’t follow. Instead, it gave him time to take in a man who was less than what he had been, yet greater at the same time.

  Rob stood over Unt but he seemed physically subdued. Part of that was down to his clothing: as he wasn’t marrying, he wasn’t bound by the uniform. Instead, he wore a sombre, dark-green shirt that somehow reduced his presence.

  In the dusky light, that darkness was a window into his soul. There was a black fire in the man, deep-rooted like a seam of coal in the earth. It was hard, determined and wilfully inactive.

  “Unt,” his voice was made of granite, “Unless you’re going to take part, might I have this dance with Crystal?”

  No! his mind was screaming. We’ve won, he’s exiled from her. Don’t let him in!

  Unt glanced at Crystal, intending to ask her by a look, but that was a mistake. If he’d thought she might be too demure to show her emotions, he was wrong. The passion within her was so pure that it had no room for knowledge of shame.

  Yes, he thought, he’d lost this battleground but he’d win in the long-run. He could now be magnanimous in his victory and grant her this small concession. Then she wouldn’t have reason to hate him afterwards.

  “Of course,” he answered Rob.

  They were two small words that said everything was fine but in doing so, told a great lie. Everything was not fine. Helpless, he watched Rob lead Crystal onto the dance floor. There was a symmetry to their movements, as though they were dancing before the music had even begun.

  Jaro took to the stage once more. He’d grown redder throughout the day and had ripened into a shiny purple colour. That pixie-swagger in his oddly-shaped body was still going and he attacked the mic with relish.

  “Well, Lovers,” he said, “There’s one more tune before the big final number and we wouldn’t want to see you all blown before it comes around. So what we’re going to do now is a quiet little dance. It should ease things up nicely and it’ll maybe give you young ‘uns a chance to nestle in with one-another. Girls and boys, please take your positions for Tide and Landfall.

  Unt knew Tide and Landfall and had always hated it. He’d hated it because it was a slow, boring one to practise but now he hated it because it would bring Rob and Crystal together. He’d never felt anything himself but it was renowned as a lovers’ dance and he was helpless to do anything but watch.

  The dance called for two lines facing each other end-on with a single couple connecting them. Right now, that couple was Rob and Unt’s wife. As he watched the other couples take position, he got the idea that the two of them had somehow arranged this.

  Rob could have had a word with the bandmaster to play this dance and hadn’t it been Crystal who persuaded Unt to get the food that stopped him from dancing? No, he told himself; he was being paranoid. There was no conspiracy: things had just gravitated this way. It was the same way that the herd-mind of the people now put those two at their centre, as though commanded by a secret power.

  With places assumed, the music struck up and the dance began. Rob and Crystal pressed hard together, pushed away and receded back along their own lines. The next couple followed straight after but Unt was watching the two leaders wend their way to the back of the queue.

  As he watched, Unt dwelt on the dance’s narrative. The story being enacted was one of love between the land and the sea. The men played the part of the land and the women played the sea.

  When they first touched, the two fell deeply in love, but the forces that brought them together would always pull them apart. Theirs was a desperate, fleeting love and it couldn’t have been more apt.

  After the first movement, the two lines spent longer together, moving up the dance floor before parting, stretching the lines into circuits. These were the increasing times of the land and the tide together; a time for the love to deepen. All day, Unt had longed for the chance to make this connection with Crystal and now it was being seized by someone else.

  Then the circuits became two lines that faced one another. The girls moved away from the men as one body and rejoined further up the line. When the tide touched the wrong land, she recoiled and fell away, again and again, ever seeking her lost love.

  When they rejoined, the world spun for joy. The two lines pivoted around each other, circling until they finally halted, facing opposite corners of the dance floor. Now began an ebbing back and forth. As she was pulled away, the tide would try to drag the land with her. He would fail, fall back, and she’d rush in to reclaim him.

  At the height of every ebb, the lines would squash together in the corners and the dancers would be pressed together in intimacy. Unt saw his wife pressed against the arms of Rob, her own delicate limbs squeezing into the flesh of his shoulders.

  The pace of the music drove the dancers faster and with growing intensity. Unt’s jealousy and despair rose with the tempo. Emotions were magnified on and off the dance floor.

  At last, the dance came to its climax. The tide, unwilling to release her love, gripped him in a passionate storm, swirling about him faster and faster until the force of their love ripped her from him. The men fell to the floor: the land had been finally broken by the crashing waves. The women circled the debris mournfully, slowing until finally they lay down over their lost and broken loves and were still.

  Those not dancing rose to their feet and applauded mightily. Unt didn’t applaud. He stood there, lost. In a sea of clapping hands, he was still. The only other people he saw unmoving were Crystal’s parents. They just stood at the back, side by side, face-forward and holding hands. In that connection, he could see two parents who had lost a child, a couple who shared love and had seen their child love. In their silence, they had finally learned to say something to Unt.

  8. Consummation

  Unt had had a fantasy in the wee
ks building up to this point. In it, he’d pictured Crystal’s great love, fallen like a mighty tree in the woods. When it fell, it had created a hole that a new shoot might fill. He’d hoped that little shoot would become a love bearing his name but the old, dead tree had rolled over and crushed it before it had a chance to grow.

  The final dance had been supposed to be Unt’s triumph but after that last performance, his hope fell flat. He had thought of a dozen little things to say; darts that he could throw in to try and warm her heart. Those lines were redundant now and Crystal wouldn’t have heard them anyway. She returned from the dance alone and turned in on herself, a flower closing against night.

  When the time came, she got up and still performed the last dance. She showed no reluctance and matched the mad, lively music with as much energy as anyone else, but her mind was absent: it was still stuck an hour in the past. This was the only dance where the couples stayed joined throughout but instead of being closer, she felt more distant than ever.

  As they danced, her eyes never left Unt’s chest. The scent of her perfume hadn’t diminished throughout the day. It was as though all the activity had cost her no energy, as though she’d been borne along on forces outside herself. A second scent lay underneath that layer, part soap, part floral, part just her. It touched his nostrils like an exotic spice, drawing blood to his head.

  In the press of his ribs against hers, he could feel the tremble of her heartbeat. In the querulous touch of her fingers, he felt an enduring flutter but her eyes were determined. He couldn’t see them but he felt them, clinging to that point on his chest like something was pinned there and that had become the focus of her existence.

  Unt couldn’t help but notice the irony: his heart yearned for her and was pulling out of his chest to meet her; her eyes pulled at his chest like meat hooks, but despite the two connecting energies, they couldn’t feel more opposite.