Twisting the Rope

by MacAvoy, R. A. ;

  Martha grinned with her mouth closed. She herself could parade up and down in front of the Hall and create no stir. Even if she were announced by megaphones (and that odd thing had happened to her once or twice) people would look past her, seeking the celebrity. Such was public life for a woman turning fifty-five. And just as well too. Put an adoring young boy in front of her right now and she’d be reduced to asking him his school, and what books he liked to read.

  But wait George stepped aside and let the young woman in ahead of him, giving Martha a chance to see her face more closely. It was Elen’s friend Sandy, who had come all the way up from Santa Cruz to San Francisco last night to greet them, who had baby-sat for Marty this morning while they had settled in and unpacked, and who had made the overwhelming salad. For a moment Martha felt like an’ old fool, and what was worse, a jealous old fool. She found herself yawning.

  It was time to get it all going. That would wake her up, surely. The night a performance couldn’t at least open her eyes, it was time to quit for good.

  Off She Goes

  Elen glanced up from the tag of dirty paper taped to the back of the sound box of her harp. There at the left end of the stage was Pádraig, slouched on his stool, avoiding the lights. Beside him stood Ted, his bleached hair unearthly in the brightness. On Elen’s other side she was aware of George St. Ives, though she wouldn’t look at him, and on the far end was Martha Macnamara in a neat print dress, shining against the dark.

  Elen had no illusions about her central position. It was not because of her importance to the group, but because the triple harp made such a pretty picture. She hoped the lights hadn’t yet put it out of tune.

  Martha asked an A from Pádraig. The accordion emitted a brief squeak: all that was necessary. She looked from one face to another, as though to ask whether anyone was going to contradict that sound. Ted touched a string so lightly she couldn’t hear. Elen, on the harp, didn’t bother, for she had spent the last twenty minutes doing nothing else. George St. Ives looked only bored.

  Putting the fiddle under her chin, she turned to the audience, as though to ask permission. The house was full and the response came to her like the stirring of a single, large animal. She raised the bow and reminded herself, as she had every night for nearly thirty years, that she was fiddling and not playing a goddamn violin.

  “Casadh an t’súgáin” was the theme song of this tour and this band. It had been Martha’s idea to call the group by the same name; the tune was capable of a great many changes of timing and mood. But within the first week of rehearsals Elen Evans had made some joke about Macnamara’s Band and it had stuck. A group brought together for so short a time needed no title more pretentious.

  Martha began it by herself, very slowly and in the Connemara seannós: so intricate and heavy was the ornament that the tune seemed to lose itself in its own complexity. As she played she was counting to herself in little grunts inaudible to the microphone, for she had a horror of getting bogged down in this music and losing the drive forward. She did not bog down—she never did—but neither did she forget to count.

  The lights shone down on her closed eyes. She slipped a turn and replaced it with a slide, smiling to share the humor of it with whoever might have noticed.

  Elen came in, a bit sharp on her middle E but very good withal. Very close for a harp. Four bars later Pádraig entered and then Ted on guitar, almost unnoticeable except for the stability and feeling of confidence it gave the music. She felt a little spurt of fondness for Ted, who had never been known to miss a rehearsal or to throw a tantrum. His guitar played the role of “bridesmaid” to everyone else’s instrument, and he never seemed to mind. Perhaps he was so bound up in his many esoteric studies he had no ego to spare for his work.

  She felt a warmth for all of them. She found she was smiling at Elen, who replied in kind.

  Once around they went, with the uillean pipes providing a keening high D above it all, and then the pipes tore away from them and doubled the time.

  Martha, who was out for this bit, sat down on her stool very primly, legs crossed at the ankles. Her fiddle lay across her lap. “Well, that does work,” she said to no one at all.

  Long sat in the motel room, reading the Green Fairy Book to Marty. She had a great deal of affection for this book, and had covered the front binding with silver crayon. Her “Daddo’s” taste in the stories, however, was not quite hers. He liked the moralistic French tales, such as “Prince Vivian and Princess Placide,” whereas she preferred the Grimm ones. Consequently, even though she was wearing her snuggies with bunny feet, she was a bit bored.

  Mayland Long, though he was the picture of grandfatherly composure, leaning back in the motel tub chair, actually shared her sentiments. He would have liked to have heard the performance, though it was the same performance as last night’s and much the same as those of a month past. He was not of the sort who got tired of things quickly. Besides, these days, performances were the only times the band was pleasant to be around.

  And perhaps Prince Vivian and company were a bit musty, what with the fairies always interfering: tripping people up with their own vices. One grew to resent them.

  He lost his place and raised his head to see whether Marty, wrapped up on the big hard motel bed, was still listening. Their eyes met in perfect understanding.

  “Why won’t they let us go along, Daddo? This isn’t any fun.”

  Long sighed. “You were there last night, Marty, and then this afternoon you were tired and cranky because of it.”

  “I’m tired because I had to walk around with Sandy this morning, and I’m cranky ’cause I have to stay here!” She shook her yellow feet until the bunny ears flew around like whips. “But I wouldn’t be cranky if I were at the music, with Martha.”

  These sentiments were so in line with Long’s that he could not criticize them. He only said, “You mean ‘Grandmother,’ don’t you?”

  “Elizabeth said I’m to call her ‘Martha,’ so she won’t feel old.”

  “There is nothing wrong with being old,” answered Long with some acidity. He got up, losing his place in the Green Fairy Book, and went to seek another box of Kleenex. “As long as you have your health.”

  Martha’s little travel clock was standing on the bathroom shelf, where it had been exiled for the crime of ticking. Long glanced at it. Eight twenty-five. By now they were through their opening and well into the set that began with “Fanny Póer.” If not through that also and into the Breton pipe solo. He looked at his image in the mirror with a sort of drear satisfaction: red nose, watery eyes, and lips cracked painfully in the middle. He thought about George St. Ives, who always looked a bit like this, and wondered if that was what made the fellow so unpleasant.

  There was a sound from behind him: high, thin, sustained. The wail of a car alarm, perhaps. That would be enough to set the cranky, child into her own wailing. Along with it came a draft of cold air which reminded him the window in the bedroom was still open. Long stepped out to close it.

  He stepped into darkness, thick and clinging. In surprise he clutched at the doorway. There was the large, ginger-jar table lamp, shining no brighter than a nightlight by the bed. And there was the pudgy form of Marty just where he had left her, but half-coiled and with both hands covering her face. Over all was cold—bitter cold—and foul air. The wail rose in volume, accompanied by a meaningless grumble and chatter. It seemed to be coming from Marty.

  Long let out a dry hiss, not knowing he was doing so. He dived across the beds for the baby. Her pajamas were damp and her skin cold. She was stiff. Was she even breathing? He flipped her over on her back and pulled the tiny, short-fingered hands away from her face.

  He gave a start backward, for it was not Marty’s face he saw in the circle of her downy flaxen hair. It was heavier, crude, with a sloppy mouth and a large forehead and staring, round eyes. A goblin’s face.

  “Marty!” He took her by the shoulders with his elongated hands and shook her. “Marty!
What is this?”

  “What is what?” she answered, irritably.

  There was no wailing and no cold, and a sweet summer breeze blew the curtains against the window screen. “What is what, Daddo?”

  Long made no answer.

  What an audience this was; Martha knew they were extraordinary when she found that she had turned her back on them in her effort to keep in tune and time with the harp player. Rarely did she feel so secure in concert. With certain rowdy crowds in the Midwest she had hardly dared turn her eyes away. But these kids in their bright costumes sat like good children in church. Except that they clapped with great enthusiasm. Such manners.

  The thought hit her that they probably all had either strong political beliefs or history doctorates and the group would be crucified in the papers tomorrow as bourgeois revisionists, but she resolutely pushed that from her mind. Tomorrow was tomorrow.

  There was a moment when she was free to wipe the sweat from her face with the linen hanky she kept for just that purpose. (At least she didn’t have to worry about Mayland walking off with it; afflicted or no, he thought handkerchiefs barbarous.)

  Little thoughts like insects flitted over her concentration, harmlessly. How bright the lights were—like the afternoon sun on the pier. She hoped her dress wasn’t visibly sweaty. George’s reed sounded fuzzy. Hah, he noticed it, too, and dropped out for a couple bars. There he was again. All better.

  Had someone tried to hurt old George? One of these other threads in her lovely fabric? Martha could not, at the moment, even entertain that possibility. To knock his obnoxious block off—yes, possibly. Metaphorically, of course.

  Or was it George who engineered the whole elaborate setup? Why, then. For attention? To get Pádraig in trouble? Martha put the whole thing out of her mind.

  Next, according to the schedule they had evolved, came “Kid on the Mountain.” She shot a carefully neutral glance at Pádraig, to find him looking at her. She looked away again. George, who began the piece, filled the bagpipe.

  But it wasn’t the elbow pipes he had in his arms, but his goatskin Polish set. The reed must have been really bad on the others to make him switch. If he wasn’t careful, he’d drown them all out.

  With the first sound of the drone Martha knew something was wrong, but it took her a good two bars before her ears told her what it was. The Polish pipes were slightly sharp to the standard they were using. Sharp to the accordion, which could not be retuned. This was a real problem, as Pádraig was next to come in, with the solo that had broken his nerve only yesterday. Surely George himself could tell …

  She looked over at Pádraig and mouthed the words “stay out” as she put the fiddle under her chin. But the young man wasn’t looking anywhere near her now. His face bore a look of worried surprise and he was getting ready.

  Dammit! Martha chewed her lip. She might have come in Pádraig’s place, fingering sharp and avoiding open strings until the pipes dropped out, when she could modulate down to the rest of them. But it was too late. Here was the accordion, on time and perfect, but sounding dull and dimwit, as though it, and not the pipes, were off-key. Pádraig’s face was greasy.

  Then the guitar uttered a series of unrehearsed and very brash major chords, perfectly in tune with the accordion. Martha glanced her approval at Ted. If they were going to be out of tune, at least let the boy be spared.

  The harp added some very heavy bass fifths, and now it was the bagpipe that sounded strident and tinny over the rest of the music. Martha turned for the first time and gave George St. Ives a look of wonder and accusation. But his shaggy head was bent over the pipes and his eyes quite closed. Martha wondered if perhaps it was no plot against Pádraig at all, but only that the man was drunk.

  But even if the audience was composed of Marxist traditionalists, as she had feared, they were not tonally demanding, for they were dancing in the aisles and had made a circle at the base of the stage.

  The pipe dropped out of the music before scheduled. Had George finally realized? Both Elen and Ted looked to Martha questioningly. “Whatever the hell,” she said, perfectly audibly, and the band gave it hell enthusiastically, for fifteen minutes unbroken.

  Somehow it was an hour later than they usually broke up. Martha was sailing with exhilaration and fatigue. Her fingers shook. She put her fiddle into its case and looked for Pádraig, who would run away if one didn’t catch him.

  He was at the foot of the stairs, and had already been caught. “What are you, Czech? Sound Czech, like my brother-in-law. He plays the accordion too.” It was a motherly looking woman of middle age, wearing a velvet djellaba with enormous sleeves.

  Pádraig grinned. “I am from Minnesota. Excuse me.” He barged through, using his instrument as a ram. Martha tried to follow and came face-to-face with the motherly looking woman, who recognized her as someone who had been on stage.

  “He isn’t a Czech? Or something like it?”

  Martha shook her head. “Not very like it. Sorry.”

  “Oh! You’re not Irish!” The woman couldn’t keep disappointment out of her voice. “No, not all of us,” said Martha, trying to squeeze by before Pádraig disappeared.

  As she made it into the clear aisle, she heard the same voice asking, “… but which one of them is Macnamara? I missed him.”

  Elen Evans pushed past Ted on the stairs of the stage, almost bowling him over. He watched her go toward the dressing room with only the mildest reproach in his spaniel-brown eyes, for Ted made endless allowances for other people.

  It took him a good fifteen minutes to work his way through the people waiting to say a word to him, for Ted never cut anyone off. In fact, he enjoyed talking with people, and strangers interested him more than close friends. He was the best of the band members for explaining the provenance of the various pieces they played, for Ted was polite and cared about such things. When he closed the double door behind him and passed down the hall to the dressing room, he had a wide, unforced smile on his face and three new telephone numbers in his pocket. He stopped at the dressing room door to shift the heavy fiberglass guitar case from his right to his left hand, and then he paused with his hand on the knob.

  It was George’s voice, and he was saving, “You know, Elen, if I caught the plague, you’d probably think I did it on purpose, so you could catch it from me.”

  The answer, in Elen’s voice, was too sharp and rapid to carry. Ted was left undecided, his hand on the doorknob and his guitar pulling his left shoulder down uncomfortably.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, my dear. But sometimes my mistakes are just mistakes. You know? Like people make? I hadn’t played those Polish…”

  The unwilling eavesdropper caught almost none of Elen’s reply, except something about a dog being able to tell the pipes were sharp. To that St. Ives replied, “Well, I’m in a position to contradict you on that, because I’m sick as a dog right now, and ought to know.”

  “Don’t make me into your personal little devil, Elen. I don’t do anything to hurt the group.”

  Her one-word reply came through the door perfectly.

  “I don’t, bitch! It means something to me. If you think about it for one solid minute with a clear head…. It wasn’t exactly convenient for me to drop everything and join this tour. I wanted to play once with the old lady fiddler, while I had the chance. I may not be perfect, but I don’t… don’t walk out on my responsibilities.”

  There were steps approaching from down the hall. Ted had to open the door, or be caught standing there. He opened it. Elen turned to him, wide-eyed. He expected to find fury in her face, but instead she looked alarmed and frightened. St. Ives did not raise his buffalo-heavy head from his pipes.

  Putting the guitar down on the deal table, Ted made an exaggerated grimace of pain and flexed his fingers. “Friends and neighbors, I have got to get a second case for my baby. This one is overkill for everything except dropping it out of an airplane.”

  Elen blinked as though she didn’t understan
d what Ted was saying and wiped her forehead under the fringe of hair. Her vague glance drifted by him as the door opened once again to admit Mayland Long, carrying the triple harp under one arm.

  He was dressed in sport jacket, white shirt, and flannel trousers, which made up his usual casual outfit. “Has anyone seen Donald Stoughie?” he asked.

  Elen stared and St. Ives shook his head. “Don’t know who the hell that is.”

  “The booking agent for the place. He was supposed to be here with our money after the show. The box office doesn’t know where he went. I am concerned.”

  Three people blinked at him and looked helpless. Sighing, Long put the instrument down in the corner of the room and walked back out again. Elen followed.

  She caught up with him halfway along the hall, where he stood leaning against the dirty wall, staring at nothing. His hands were balled in his jacket pockets, a position which Elen had noted was characteristic of the road manager. She thought it a shame, for long fingers was surely no deformity.

  “Are you really upset about Stoughie, or did she tell you what happened out there?”

  He looked up and his eyes were almost colorless against the dark face. “She told me nothing, except that, she wanted the room to… talk with Ó Súilleabháin. I came to the Hall to meet the agent.”

  “Oh. I thought you looked angry about… something else.” Elen felt a little foolish.

  Long, who was exactly her height, looked across at her and broke into a smile. “No. It is you who look angry. I looked… I don’t know how I looked, but I certainly wasn’t angry. What will I be angry about, once I know about it?”

  Elen shrugged and tossed her head. “Oh, shit. I don’t know. Nothing, I guess. Maybe She’ll tell you. I’ve got to find Pat.”