Sirens, page 38
moved in and stymied her..'mind whirled and the room tilted as she hit
the wall of flesh. She staggered but no one took any notice. d Nalted at
her, losing all form and shape, hurting her ms. Her rapid heartbeat
matched the insistent pulse of ,,'bass. She struggled across the packed
room towards the room. It seemed miles away, much too far for her to
but, abruptly, she was there, her trembling fingers g the brass knob,
the door swinging open. She pushed t behind her, went into one of the
cubicles, collapsed on toilet. Her head came forward on to her hands and
she slippery film of sweat there. aps she passed out then or, more
likely, hung on to recipice, midway between, in twilight cerebration.
She knew how much time had passed when, at length, she her eves and
lifted her head. It seemed to weigh as as a body. She blinked several
times, staring uncom- ingly at her fingers, stiff and white from hanging
on to bicle door handle. She concentrated on taking deep until she began
to feel better. e relieved herself, then went out of the cubicle. At the
-she splashed cold water over her face, feeling at length energy
returning. She cupped hqr hands and gingerly at the water. Her throat
burned but she resisted the Ise to guip. nd and smell assaulted her like
a fist -in the stomach as nt out the door. She could see people moving
beyond ong bank of windows, on a terrace, like cardboard ettcs at a
shooting gallery. She thought she might go to get out of the blast of
the heat and noise, but Chris t tip with her when she was only halfway
there. where you been? I've looked for you every- had to start twice and
then could only manage to get '' room.' Her lips felt numb. 330 331
'Heard you had a bit of a row with Tie. Buzz on f ron, somewhere."
"What ... what she said to me ... She felt like a baby; unsure of the
forming of her words. He grinned at her. ' you she was jealous.
Doesn't like that kind of competition. She's queen of th' night ... or
likes t' think so.' ' wasn't it ... She ' c'mon,' he said. ' was lookin'
fr you ' Nile an, Fre ready t' pull our stunt. Gonna play here, th' two
of us. Even Nigel doesn't know. Especially Nigel. It's gonna do him in.'
They wended their way through the throng back towards their table. ',
Nile.' Chris leaned across the table, brushing aside empty bottles of
Perrier and Tsingtao vodka, plates of crumblv Italian bread, saucers of
golden butter. ' all set? Gonna make th' announcement - then we wail.'
Nile nodded, smiled beatifically even when Chris turned away, whispered
in her ear, ', here goes.' She was still watching Nile as he reached out
a hand to her. She took it in hers, feeling its coolness like a breeze.
He stared into her eyes, opened his lips to speak. He gave a quiet
cough, fell forward, his chocolate face consumed, with a soft, almost
obscene sound, by the plate of pasta in front of him. Tomato sauce
splattered on to the white tablecloth, across Daina's shoulder, staining
her cheek. Nile lay there, perfectly still.
"Oh, my God! Chris! Chris!' She pulled at him and he spun around.
"Christ! ' The party whirled on around them, oblivious, stoned,
propelled by its own massive momentum, careering inexorablv out of
anyone's control, filled with electric thrills and clandestine groping.
A tall blonde who had been sittin next to Nile, trying vainly 9 to keep
his attention, giggled, ran her silver fingernails through his
glistening hair. ', man,' Chris said. ', Nile. Hey!' He lungcd across
Daina, sprawling over the table. Music blared and laughter rang through
the haze of smoke. Someone crushed a cigarette out in the soft butter.
The blonde leaned over, kissed Nile's 332 gurgled delightedly.
groped at him, putting the flat of her hand against mmy flesh of his
chest through the gap in his open manp Chris knelt atop the table,
dragging tablecloth dishes askew. ' get offol himv he screamed at the ,
pushing her head away. He dug his fingers into Nile's Afro, pulled his
head up. ina gasped; the blonde giggled hysterically, one hand .-her
mouth. Nile's skin was as pale as caf6 au lait. Chris . his hand away
involuntarily at the shock and Nile's head fell back like dead weight,
hitting the back of the -red banquette. The blonde turned away, vomiting
all herself. ' open eyes, already glazing, were raised, unseeing, 333
Eight The sky, far out along the clean, unbroken horizon, was the
colour of the sea. It reminded her of the melancholy ooff latee summer
when the blueberries were so enormous she thought they might burst if
she touched them with the tip of her finger, when she could smell their
perfume a hundred yards away from the verge of the patch. It was a time
when the moon hung swollen in the sky, as dusky as a lantern in an
ancient, faded picture book and she knew it was time for her boyfriend
of two months to be leaving with promises of love and daily
letter-*riting that would never be fulfilled. Because summer was often
like that: one great sea cruise that bore no direct link with the rest
of one's life. It was time to return to the still-steaming city, to the
open fire hydrants, the sticky Indian summer of September and the coming
of school, old friends in reunion once more, comparing notes, and the
long slow slide into grey winter. Beside her, Chris was crying. - Far
off, the gulls lifted off from a spit of land, circling the dark grey
water. As the first wan rays of the morning sun caressed the tops of the
orange steel pillars of the Golden Gate, they commenced their hungry
cries. Daina put her arm around his shoulders, hugged him to her.
She closed her eyes against the glare of the Sausalito dawn, unaware of
the dampness of the ground against her buttocks, her own past welling up
once again, drowning her in bitter tears. ' Christ,' Chris whispered,
over the sound of the sea, the aching cries of the wheeling gulls. His
cheek was on the crook of her arm, against her flesh where she had
pushed up the material of her zippered sweatshirt with ' Duell'
silk-screened across the back. Tears rolled from his eyes, soaking into
her. She felt each drop, separate and distinct, like missiles from a
slingshot. ' a goddamn genius. There'll never be anyone like him again.'
334 them, on the edge of the road, she could feel the presence of the
limo. The driver slumped inside, wire on, arms crossed over his
fluttering chest, asleep g sonorously. d the deserted road, the town
rose upward, splayed the hill, one-storey shops and one-storey houses
amid d lush foliage, a kind of hip suburban expanse.
Here, true country, even though it was just over the bridge. New York,
she thought, where it took you a half hour get to Queens. )re all goin',
Daina.' His voice was leaden and furry too much dope and heartsickness.
"Too soon there'll be worth his salt t' run in th' fast lane. No one but
th' punks who think they know it all but don't really know it's about.
Th' musicians - th' pure musicians're dyin' dyin' o' some disease that
has no cure.' just the pace, Chris.' ' his head emphatically. ', you're
wrong. It's th' ess in between does th' killin'. That void's so large
th' music's over we dare not - any of us - stick too long ' it'll just
eat us up alive. Swallow us He shuddered beside her and she pressed her
lips into der to calm him. t is 0' she asked. ' void." turned his head
to look at her, his eyes bleak and teary. us, Dain. Us.
I reckon we gotta pay for ... what we do. @t ... we can't live with
ourselves. That's it, y'know. th' secret. All of it. So we kick in th'
afterburners, light there so fuckin' fast we don't see th' dark. But
it's creepin' th'time, all round th' edges. All round.' ike I said: the
pace.' Aunno. Nigel'nmen'Jon, too ... we all come from a place e where
there was nothin' altall t'look forward to ' None o' us coulda worked at
th' local greengrocer's an' ever woulda made it through university. An'
what else A poor boy do in England? Rockn'roll's the driving force d our
lives. It sustained us when we were listenin' t'it; ,us from starving
when we were makin'it. ithout it, we're nothin' at all an' bein' where
we are ... none of us can bear t'go back. Same with Nile. On'y 335
thing he ever loved in life was his music ... an@ that's what killed
him.' ' the horse.' ''s all th' same, don't you see that? One goes with
th' other, that's what I've just been tellin' you.
You been listenin" , i Outside o' th' music, we just can't ... Christ
Almighty! we can't stand up t' any of it.' He closed his eyes slowly,
almost reluctantly, as if he were giving up a precious object. A wind
had sprung up from the west and he huddled closer to her. She stroked
his hair, brushing the thick locks away from his face as the breeze took
them. ' I was much younger,' Daina said, ' grandmoliner was still alive;
my mother's mother, the only grandparent I ever knew. She was already
very old - into her late seventics; - and my mother was finally
convinced by the doctors to Put her into a home. She told me once much
later that she had hated to do it but I never believed her really. My
mother never had much of a conscience. ' each day after that she would
jump whenever the phone would ring late at night or very early in the
morning, thinking that it was the home calling. ' of course one morning
it was. She seemed to listen for the longest time and then she put the
receiver down without a word. "Grandmother's died," she said.
"She died at breakfast. Pop!" - she snapped her fingers - "Just like
that. Fell over into her Cream of Wheat and never knew what had happened
to her." ' She stroked the backs of her fingers against his check. '
that's what happened to Nile, Chris. Keeled over of old age at
thirty-three. That's what I mean by the pace.' ', Christ, he made such
music!' Daina shook her head. ' was a wonder, ol' Nile. I once saw him
break a string in b th' middle of a solo. He never stopped playin. Just
took th' new string they handed him, wound it on, tuned up an' never
missed a beat, not a note outta. place. If you wasn't watchin'3 you'da
never known at all ...' ' you heard a word I said?' He picked his head
up off her arm. ' heard every goddamned word.
Whatta you want me t' say? I know the implications but it's my life.' Re
said exactly the same thing to me last night.' h, I'll just bet he did."
He turned his head'away, stared the rising sun. Only the gulls crying
now at the spilling of ew light like blood from a rent carcass. ;'Did
you ever feel,' he said, after a time, ' if you stopped t you were doing
- I mean cold quit - it would be all over, Something terrible would
overtake - you'd dissolve into a of nothingness.' He took her hand. '
mean I couldn't go back to what I once was ...'A shudder seemed to pass
ugh him..The pale pink of the dawn's light brushed the spiral tops the
somnolent waves. Below, in the shallow troughs, the was still dark as
gunmetal. Daina thought of Rubens, of terrorists.
"Dissolution's my iness,' she whispered. ''s what I do; what makes me
py. Like music for you, it keeps me going, my ground, the long thread
that gives my life continuity.' Just the soft cry of the seagulls,
tugging the strings of ow. ''s what happens between th' music that
scares me, Dain,' said. ' th' plane, in th' airports, th' limos, th'
restaurants. I I see in front o' my eyes are those tiny bloody seconds
o' ingnlss an' I'm lost in th' void. I don't know where I am where I'm
goin' any more, just think on where I've come : the miserable stinkin'
basement flat in Soho.' He looked y from her, would not meet her eyes.
"What if I leave th' d an' it's all gone? I'll be nothin' again.
Nothin'.' The gulls had found something oqt there, a school of fish ps
swimming close to the surface., because they were very ited now, hanging
close to the wavetops in tight, spiralling les. She could see their
bills snapping open and closed, snaking jerk of their necks as they
pulled fish out of the r. I don't think,' she said carefully, ' that's
enough of a n to screw up your life now.' The gulls were a fluttering
nket, lifting and lowering in unconscious imitation of the .
Beyond, a white-sailed ketch. tacked before the wind. see - I can feel
how miserable you are. Tie sees it. Why on think she's tried to get
friendly with me during this end?' 336 337 'Forget Tie,' he said.
"She's just playing another one of her mind games.' ''s as jealous of me
as she was of Maggie. She doesn3t like our relationship. She doesn't
trust it.' '. She doesn't trust what she doesn't understand. Who does?'
' supposed to mean?' He looked at her. ' just leave Tie t' me! ' think
you're so smart,' she said angrily, ' I don't think you know who's
controlling who.' He glared at her. ' it comesebloody women, I know
whaes what.' ' you?' He was filled with a little-boy bravado that only
served to provoke her into needling him.
Why couldn't he see what was so obviously hanging right in front of his
face? ', but you make me feel a fool, sometimes,' he said. ' force of
will intimidates me, hypnotizes me.' He rubbed his palms up and down his
thighs. ' I think o' the women I've been with ... an' others who I
haven't even cared about. There's an endless line right round th' world,
just for me.' ' -' ' fought ' you, Maggie an. me. We ... I expect it was
' we saw you differently.' His eyes seemed to drop away from her, to
leak down into the past. ' saw what was happenin' even if you didn't.
No, don't interrupt. I don't have enough courage in me t' start all over
again.' He gave a deep, shuddering sigh. ' knew you had no idea, left it
that way ' I began t' realize that it was partially what drew me on. '
wanted t' be around you more an' more. It was a first, really, an' it
got me bloody pissed off. I mean that you shouldn't react like all th'
rest.' He waved an extended arm, painting the horizon in his telling. '
of '.
Women. They lust after power - as big a hard-on as they c'n get. Then
they compare it with all th' others: mine's bigger'n yours. Hal ' with
you, for th' first time I felt ... I just wanted t' be with you. It
scares me ... It still does in a way ' I don't understand that. I mean I
don't feel like we've gotta be in bed all th' time or anything.
Just ... y'know ... be! His eyes seemed to focus on the space between
them. ' could eve 338 w ... y'know ... down there near the water where
no is, no ...' She put a hand on his arm. '1 -2 think that what happened
t' Nile's gonna happen t' me you? Sure. I c'n see it in your eyes. But
you're wrong. th' end, all th'goin'- like Joplin'n'Jon'n'Hendrixn'Jim
son. But there're th' others, like Muddy Waters'n'Chuck n'them who just
go on'n'on an' never heard of retireor death; who aren't burnt out at
thirty-three. Well, I'm them. I ain't gonna die ... I know what's
happenin' monster She leaned forward, kissed his cheek, held his head, g
him with her long fingers, deliberately prolonging the ',' she breathed.
''re no monster. I know it, And she could not go on, could not somehow
say to I'm afraid for you, afraid that Tie - what? She knew in this he
was not strong. He might have resisted her ces in the past because of
Jon and in the present - or, accurately, the immediate past - because of
Maggie. But now there was no one to stand between them, not even I with
whom, it seemed, Tie was growing bored. e saw him watching the line of
her hair as it fanned out a sail in the wm4d, lightening as the sunlight
began to pour the sky. Im a survivor,' he said. ''ve been through it all
... all thl y wars in th' streets back home. Got my head knocked an'
came back t' beat th' day. You understand what I'm 9P nd them, the
white-sailed ketch raced for the far zon where the sea skin still seemed
dark and scaled with remnants of the night, thin and straight as a newly
f&ged rd blade. It seemed to her a solid and solitary creature mming the
edge of the world.
"About bed,'she began. ''re friends, Chris ' can go t' bed t'gether.' '
where I come frorn.' She took his chin, turned his face ards her. ' at
me. We've got something else ... someing different.
And you're ... looking to define it in some way you cari understand it."
She looked into his face. ''s not way. You knowit; youfeel it. You
