Looking For the Possible Dance

by A. L. Kennedy

  ‘What exactly are you implying, Mr Lawrence.’

  ‘Not implying. Saying. I’m saying you made a fool of me. Socially, professionally, personally, sexually. Very thorough. And when you were finished, I was supposed to creep away out of sight. That it? The shamefaced, dirty old man.’

  ‘How would you describe yourself.’

  ‘Well, I’d love to argue the point with you, but the fact is, I don’t have to. I don’t even have to see you, not ever again. You may be interested to know that I will find myself unable to give you much by way of a reference. To that, I can add that any difficulty, any awkwardness you might consider generating would prove highly unfortunate for you. I am tired of dealing with difficulties that you have caused. So . . .’

  Lawrence lifted a paper from his desk, a single, typed sheet; dated and signed.

  ‘This is a letter, unsolicited of course, which testifies that on two separate occasions you supplied a member of the Youth Theatre with cannabis – rather banal these days, but still illegal. You don’t have anything to say?’

  ‘What can I say? This is nonsense. Nobody would believe this, nobody.’

  ‘I believe it – I always believe what I see in writing. Most people do. Of course, no one need know about this, if you go peacefully, like a good wee girl. You won the battle, I won the war.’

  ‘Who wrote the letter?’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  ‘It can’t have been anyone in the Youth Theatre.’

  ‘Because they all love you so much. You know what that is, Miss Hamilton? Arrogance. I may not be a popular man, one of the boys, likeable, but at least I never assume that I’m loved. I never take love for granted.’

  ‘I am very sorry about your wife.’

  ‘Oh, shut up. “I am very sorry.” You’re pathetic. Unconvincing. You’d like to know who wrote this letter? It was Raymond. Raymond Turner.’

  ‘Raymond? I don’t know any – Oh. Gus. You mean Gus.’

  ‘I mean Raymond Turner, a young man who understands how things work. By August the Community Link Centre will be closed; the end. And in the spring we reopen; new funding, new premises and a new clientele. We’ll provide a better service on better terms; something professional. We’ll be working with people who want quality and who’ll work for it. You could have been there, too, but not now, of course. Our new centre will teach and train, be responsible, support local business, and for everything it does, it will be paid.

  ‘I know you’ll find that hard to understand. I know you’ll find it even harder not to tell anybody about our wicked plans. But then you’ll remember this letter and you’ll be sensible. Or, as you might put it, you’ll sell out to save your own skin. Just like Raymond. He needed a job – he’ll get one. I was glad to help him out. Bright boy.’

  ‘Mr Lawrence, all of this has nothing to do with me. Not even your slimy, wee fantasies have anything to do with me. I hope your new Centre does well. For the sake of some people here who are my friends. And, more than anything, I hope that none of the women who work for you will ever have to come in contact with that thing you call your mind.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  ‘I take it we’ll agree to differ, then.’

  ‘And I’ll go quietly, yes. What’s the point in anything else. Pardon me if I don’t shake your hand. Oh, and Mr Lawrence.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Take a running fuck to yourself. Good morning.’

  Margaret went to sit in the café and watched the television. She thought of several other things she could have said. Too late now.

  She knew what she would have told Colin about it; what he would have said. At one time, she had told her father everything that happened to her. She had taken it all home to him and made it entirely real, sometimes for the first time. And now, for the first time, Margaret realised she had begun to do the same with Colin. Without him, she had less reality.

  Perhaps he would be in if she called him now. Perhaps she should try.

  Behind her, Margaret knew, Lesley would be peering through the office window, ready with whatever papers she’d been given to dole out. Ready to say that she and Sam had known nothing about it at all. Fuck her, she could wait.

  Everybody could wait. She was going outside to find a payphone, get some privacy. Some fucking week.

  In Colin’s flat, the phone rang out, stopped and rang again for a long, long time. Nobody answered, nothing moved. Behind the door, there were three envelopes, two in brown and one in white. There was a partly unpacked bag on the kitchen floor and dust was beginning to gather. Everywhere, dust.

  Colin hasn’t been home since Saturday. His phone has disturbed itself and letters have arrived, but no message has reached him.

  ‘Colin McCoag.’

  ‘What?’

  Heading away from the café and from Margaret, careless of where he was walking, Colin found himself surprised.

  ‘Colin McCoag?’

  ‘What?’

  He hadn’t been concentrating. Two men stepped up and beside him, as if they were part of some dance, as if all they ever did was to move in tight beside strangers and not let them go.

  ‘He is Colin McCoag, though, isn’t he?’

  ‘Aye, I know his face. He’s just a shy boy.’

  The cab turned and stopped as though someone had hailed it, waited until Colin was inside, then jerked away. The voices round him made no sense, they came at him through music, nice music he recognised. A face was almost familiar as the streetlights rolled across it. He pulled away from the hands that held him.

  ‘Oh, now he’s waking up.’

  ‘Silly cunt. Does he no know that door willnae open – no while we’re moving.’

  ‘And we can lock them when we’re still. A great thing, your black hack. Keep him away fae that window, but. We don’t want to lose him like that.’

  Odd thoughts came into Colin’s head. He was punched a little, but mainly kicked, really just stamped on, by the end. He wanted to say who he was, to find out why this was happening. He wanted to see these people’s faces and explain that he was fit, very strong and healthy and they could only be doing this to him because they had done it before. They were used to it. He realised it wasn’t safe, not safe enough, just to be fit.

  He was sure he was shouting something, felt his face rip down against the window, then the door, then down to the floor again, and was almost certain that somebody out on the pavement had waved and laughed at him.

  ‘Shut up, wullye?’

  ‘Fuckin desperate, eh?’

  ‘Too fuckin right.’

  Colin listened to the niceness of the music. It was so nice now that it made him want to cry. The floor swung underneath him, lights stretched and sank away and he knew he would be sick soon and he knew he didn’t want to need false teeth. They were going to ruin his mouth, that was obvious.

  At about the time that Margaret was slowly walking home, without minding the dark, Colin was lying under a sheen of music, moving east and away from her. He would sometimes catch the height of a floodlit building as his head rocked round, seeing perhaps a descending perspective of arches and blank, black glass, finally knowing the sounds he heard were Mozart, something by Mozart, something sad. So sad.

  ‘Mr McCoag? Colin? Wake up. Was he really so very troublesome? How can I make him understand me when he’s like this? You don’t think ahead.’

  ‘We did our best, sir. He wouldn’t settle down and there were folk about.’

  ‘You know what like the town is on Saturday night, sir. Revellers. Everywhere.’

  Colin lay on his back with his eyes closed as voices circled round him, echoed a little with the sound of shoes on a bare wood floor. It was quite cold.

  ‘Will we put the tape on now, sir?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which would you prefer, sir?’

  ‘I felt in the mood for the Prague.’

  ‘We do have that, sir; we have K
504.’

  ‘But you’ve been playing him the Clarinet Concerto. If I change now, then there’s hardly any point in bothering. Ah!’

  Colin flinched and felt the deeper of the voices pad up close. Smile.

  ‘He is awake. I thought he was. The Clarinet Concerto now. Thank you.’

  The niceness came back in the air and Colin opened his eyes. They blinked and blurred, focused enough to show him a huge, dark room with three men in it. A new face, another one he almost knew. Or was he in a condition to almost know everyone? He felt he might be.

  ‘No, don’t try to move. If you do, the gentlemen who brought you here will stop you. Will kick seven shades of shite right out of you. Why? Well, we have our reasons.’

  Colin made a noise, felt a noise in his mouth.

  ‘Alright, I’ll tell you, although I would rather listen to Mozart than hear myself speak. You were a cheeky boy. Isn’t that right?’

  ‘Very fucking cheeky.’

  ‘You upset a little business I was planning, insulted one of my employees. In a public place. Oh, but you did, don’t shake your head, it will only annoy me. We were trying to offer a service to the community, loans for anyone who needs them, any time. You stopped us providing that service. You said bad things. So I think you should apologise. Mr Smith, over there, he’s the man you insulted. On you go. Don’t worry that you can’t walk. I think he’d actually prefer you to be crawling.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right, sir.’

  The Adagio rippled over the boards and through the dust Colin lifted as he moved. He kissed feet as he was told to, fat notes cool inside his head, running up and up, most especially sweetly, even when feet kicked his face, his kidneys, and set him off crawling again to somewhere else.

  ‘Mr Smith and Mr Smith, I think you have been telling little lies. Mr McCoag is no trouble at all. He only cries too much which hurts nobody but himself. No, leave him lie.’

  Colin felt himself abandoned, sank one cheek to the boards without feeling when it touched, slightly aware that a ragged edge of tooth was tearing something.

  ‘You are an example, Colin. People will hear about you and will not admire what you did. They will not wish to repeat it. This is our own small Terror, Colin. You can gather it every day from everywhere; post offices and court rooms, your evening paper, your evening streets. We just make our own use of it. This is the way we live, do you see; we cannot exist outside society and so we do our best to use it. To offer it reflections of itself. But because this is so wasteful, so negative, I like to bring something in with a little heart. I like to give. Don’t I?’

  ‘Generosity itself, sir.’

  ‘I play you Mozart. Because you will never forget tonight, you’ll dream about it in every detail, sharp and fine. So you will never forget this Mozart. You will be a man who dreams the Clarinet Concerto, you will have it all there, tight inside your head. What I wouldn’t give for that. I have made you an example but now you can learn, you can enrich your life.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll ever listen to Mozart again.’

  It became dark very soon after that.

  ‘Mr McCoag, I know you’re awake. You are nursing resentments against us. Very natural, I’m sure, but very destructive. For you. Bad for the soul and we want you to have such a very healthy soul. Now we are going to drive them out. Deal with his mouth.’

  Colin’s mouth was filled with something, filled and overfilled until the floor twisted up underneath him and his arms and legs stretched endlessly away in the most curious pain.

  Quite quickly, he discovered the pain was in his hands and then his feet. Enormous. They must be cutting off his hands and feet. How could they do that? He would die.

  Again, the clarinet was playing, singing, humming, turning his brain in its hands and carrying words.

  much worse

  dirty nails

  appreciate the effort

  shoes

  Mr Smith

  fine

  stig

  YOU’LL HAVE

  STIG

  concentrate don’t go away from us

  STIGMATA

  JUST LIKE BABY JESUS

  COLIN

  colin

  COLIN

  COLIN

  COLIN

  COLIN

  COLIN

  COLIN

  COLIN

  colin

  co

  CHRIST

  LOOK AT THAT.

  He couldn’t remember them leaving, only that he was aware, sometimes, of being alone and afraid of rats. He also had a great fear of turning in his sleep.

  Once he dreamed he was falling and cried out, tried to reach, to reach something.

  Colin woke in the chill, misty morning left by a clear, clear night with the man who was called Mr Webster kneeling on his arms. This prevented Colin moving and pulling at the nails they had fixed through his hands and feet and was a charitable, almost loving act.

  Colin found himself unable to speak, but listened to Mr Webster speaking with such a focus of attention that he would later remember everything, even the spaces where Mr Webster took his breath. There was a strangely musical quality to his voice. Music from a bright mouth.

  ‘Good morning. I like you.’

  It slowly became clear that the night was really over and this was the morning come and no one had died, although some things were different. Colin was very cold, shivering in a way he had no power to stop, glad of the warmth from Webster’s breath, the touch of his hands. There was something very solid against his feet. Perhaps a wall.

  ‘I believe we must learn from everything. I believe that nothing ever happens by accident.’

  Colin became slowly aware that he had pissed himself, but couldn’t remember when. He felt ashamed when Webster looked at him.

  Even when the ambulance came, following hard behind its lovely and unmistakable sirens, Colin was still listening to Webster, playing him over and over again inside his head.

  ‘Do every tiny thing you want to do.’

  Those words.

  ‘We might have to do it all again: waste everyone’s time. Be alive, Colin, don’t forget.’

  Policemen arrived, blanched and moved away from where Colin lay, and then there were soft hands all around and soft voices. Everything was soft – even Webster, Webster’s voice repeating, ‘This was a good lesson, Colin, don’t forget it.’

  Colin fainted when he saw the pliers. Never felt the pain.

  ONE MORNING, MARGARET receives a letter from Mr Ho which tells her just a little about Colin. About what happened. Mr Ho writes very carefully. He says Colin is safe in hospital now, beginning his recovery.

  Mr Ho leaves Margaret his office telephone number and says he will take her to Colin on the evening of whichever day she calls. He does not say if Colin has asked her to come. His letter arrives in the first post on Wednesday and that evening, Margaret goes to the hospital.

  They drove into the car-park in Mr Ho’s burgundy Rover, then walked into the heat and light and tension of the hospital.

  ‘You should sit down, now.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘We will sit here, by the flower shop and gather our thoughts. Something unpleasant has happened to Colin and you have been very good, for whatever reason, in not asking about exactly what. I would like to say that you shouldn’t worry. This will all seem very trite, I know, but I will say it anyway – only his body is sick. Everything else is quite well, so he will get better. He may even get better than he was.’

  ‘Does he know I’m coming?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘We split up.’

  ‘I know he would like to see you. He has almost no family, you understand? Up until now, only I have been to see him. There are nicer things for him to look at than a rotund acupuncturist. But, if you don’t mind, I will go in and see him first.’

  Mr Ho stood up neatly, scooping up one of her hands between his smooth palms.

  ‘Will you come with
me? Now? We have to take the lift.’

  Margaret could feel herself starting to cry. Mr Ho would only have to do one more considerate thing, only look after her a little bit more and she would let go entirely, she would weep. She cleared her throat, bending forward, still sitting.

  ‘Is he in pain?’

  ‘He has been. His . . . you’ll see. Everything’s going to be fine.’

  At any time, Margaret can recall how Colin looked that evening. A creature, a wounded something, a figure laid out on its tomb.

  The coverlet over his bed was lemon yellow, the sheets and pillows white like his bandages. She found herself looking at the bandages round his hands, the soft, white bundles his hands had become. She had thought she would hold his hands. She had wanted to.

  ‘Colin. Are you awake?’

  He had a cage over his feet.

  ‘Colin. I didn’t know. Mr Ho, he –’

  Although Colin never wore pyjamas, he was dressed in a pyjama jacket now. She didn’t know how he could stand it – the heat and the sheets and the jacket. How did they get his hand bundles through the sleeves?

  When his eyes opened, she had to look at them. And his face.

  ‘Hiya. Don’t speak if it hurts too much. Oh, I didn’t know where you were. Baby. You worried me.’

  Colin flinched when she lifted her hand to his head and she felt herself start to sweat. Her stomach flickered and her skin tightened down along her back.

  ‘It’s alright. I won’t hurt you. I won’t hurt you. Just touch your hair, I’m just touching your hair.’

  For most of her visit, she sat where he could see her, with one hand reached to touch his head. Colin never spoke, only looked at her.

  Even now, on her train, Margaret closes her eyes to imagine Colin in his yellow hospital bed. Even now, it is better to close her eyes because she will probably cry. Outside the ward, that first evening, she cried. Mr Ho held her and rubbed her back while she cried. When she had finished, he held her hands and smiled at her and made her cry again.