An Evening at Joe's (29 page)

He was a little confused and it wasn't until he caught himself watching his shadow sway crazily back and forth across the corridor that the thought occurred to him. "The lightbulb's moving. So where's the draught coming from? Somewhere else of course, you idiot!" He started down the corridor and after about forty feet or so he came up against another door. This one was plain and had no glass but the sound of the wind was quite strong the other side. Apart from a corroded iron doorknob there was also a keyhole and he bent down to be greeted by a blast of concentrated air that made hot salt water stream down his cheek. Through the tears he thought he could make out the dim out-lines of another corridor but also his nose was picking up the dank, musty smell of underground. Straightening up, he took a deep breath, grasped the doorknob in his hand, and pushed. The door swung open easily and he found himself in a subterranean passageway about fifteen feet across and seven feet high, the walls and ceiling of which were made of large blocks of roughly chiseled stone and which ran for about fifty feet before veering sharply to the left. He cautiously began to walk along the beaten earth floor which was hard and dry and looked for footprints or any sign at all that anyone else had been there before him but he found nothing. Turning back would achieve nothing so he decided to follow the tunnel to see where it led.

He'd been walking for quite a while and still the tunnel yielded no hint of where it might be leading. There was no variation in its construction and, as before, no sign of previous occupancy. Every so often the tunnel would turn sharply left or right as if leading somewhere specific but then it would continue on its way, the monotony of its walls unrelieved by a door or a corridor leading off somewhere else. He was just starting to get impatient when the passageway deviated sharply to the right and there before him were a set of stone steps leading up and through the ceiling. Shafts of cold blue-white light pierced the subterranean gloom from above and picked up the swirling motes of dust in the air. At last it looked as if he had reached his journey's end.

He went to the foot of the steps and looked up and held his breath as he beheld a dazzling silver-white moon framed against an indigo sky. After a few moments' reflection and with a heavy tread he started up the staircase, never taking his eyes off the far off stars intermittently pricking through the fabric of an inky universe.

He found himself in an arena at the very bottom of the amphitheatre he had visited a few days ago. Seen from above, the scale of the place had been impressive, but now, down here, it was, if anything, more awe-inspiring. The tiered benches or steps glowed white under the watchful eye of the moon and seemed to stretch up and away into infinity. Here the air was still and cold and not a sound was to be heard except for the crunch of his footsteps in the sand as he walked about trying to take it all in. The stadium was completely empty and yet the place was filled with an intense atmosphere of anticipation. Something was about to happen. He could feel it. It was like a charge of electricity running through him and it was becoming unbearable. He had to do something, anything, to break the spell.

"Hello!"

His voice echoed around and around the arena and he waited for the echo to fade and die and then listened but all remained silent.

This time he shouted a little louder, "Hello! Is there anybody there?"

A cacophony of noise and jumbled up words came back to mock him and he looked about apprehensively... why had he been led here if nothing was to happen? What was the point... there had to be a point, he had felt it... that it had all meant something. Surely... and then he stopped in his tracks. All was now silence and he held his breath. The beating of his heart pounded in his ears and he stood there rooted to the spot just waiting. Nothing , . . nothing... and then, yes, there it was. From deep down inside the bowels of the arena came the sound of a deep-throated, mocking laugh.

"Who's there?"

Again the laughter, steady, goading, sardonic, confident.

This wasn't at all what he had expected. Trembling with apprehension he took a few steps forward and shielded his eyes from the moonlight with his hand. At regular intervals around the stone Walls of the arena shadowy entrances from the tunnels below gaped like rotting cavities in an otherwise handsome smile.

"Come out and show yourself... that's what we're here for isn't it?"

An asylum of voices came at him from all directions, reverberating wave upon wave in lunatic repetition of his original words. The tide of sound eventually ebbed only to be replaced by the agonising silent wait and then the slow, assured and derisive laugh.

Suddenly he thought he could hear music... a distant melancholy orchestral strain followed by the profoundly sad tones of a soprano. He looked around to see where it might be coming from and there behind him, perhaps fifty yards away, he saw some sort of long box resting on a couple of trestles and what looked like an old wind-up gramophone with a brass amplifying horn placed on the box at one end. Flaming torches, one at each corner, illumined the scene with a rich and flickering glow. Although cracked and slightly tinny, the sound of the old record almost seemed to add to the poignancy of the moment as his eyes feasted on the seductive and solemn beauty of the scene. The passage of time itself seemed to have been frozen as the mesmeric combination of sight and sound slowly drew him forward.

"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine."

He could feel something pulling him forward, as powerful and yet unseen as the force that holds a moon and its planet in a suspension of mutual attraction.

"... et lux perpetua luceat eis... "

Approaching the box it was as if he was in a dream and all movement, even that of the very flames, was slow and measured. The lid of the box appeared to be in two halves, the upper half resting against one of the trestles.

"Te decet hymnus, Deus in Sion... "

Finally his eyes cleared the top edge of the box-side and there, covered in a pale green, blood-soaked sheet, the face covered in a perspex breathing mask, he found himself looking into his own eyes.

"...et tibi red-det-ur...vot-um...in...J...e...r...u..." The gramophone had begun to wind down and the moment lost its hold on him and suddenly he saw the face looking back at him was laughing, the same deep-throated laugh he had heard before.

"...s...a...l...e...m..."

The record had ground to a halt and as the silence reasserted itself he felt an anger he had never experienced before well up inside him. He turned in one decisive movement and, grabbing the gramophone and raising it above his head, he smashed it down on the coffin before him. But there was no crash or splintering of wood, no violent shiver as the bones in his arms absorbed the shock of one solid object hitting another. Opening his eyes he beheld an empty scene. The box, the trestles, the record player, even the torches, all had disappeared and no trace of their presence remained even in the sand of the arena floor.

He stood there for a few seconds feeling slightly foolish when he heard again the complacent, self-satisfied laugh coming from the tunnel but before he could react he was distracted by the sight of a little boy carrying a teddy bear who had emerged from the blackness of one of the shadowed entrances. He was about ten years old and seemed vaguely disorientated as he looked about him. Having come about twenty yards in from the edge of the perimeter he clutched the bear to his chest and started to cry.

"I want my daddy back! I... want... my... daddy back!"

He thought that perhaps the boy was lost and, genuinely moved by his distress, he walked towards him.

"What are you doing here," he asked. "Have you lost your father?"

The boy's face was eclipsed in shadow but his distress was all too apparent as he sobbed even louder. "Daddy! ...Daddy! Why did you die, Daddy? Why did you leave me?"

He had started to shiver as he heard the words the boy had uttered. There was something familiar about him and it troubled him although he couldn't quite pin it down.

"What's your name, little boy?" His words sounded so ineffectual, so impotent in the face of the grief of the child. "Perhaps I can help you? Would you like me to help you?"

The boy didn't seem to have heard him as he continued to cry so he moved to within a few feet of him and gently tried again. "Tell me, little boy, what is the matter. Why are you crying? Come on now, look at me when I'm talking to you."

The little boy stopped crying immediately and stood there for a moment with his head hung low. And then slowly, he raised his head and as the man looked at the face he recoiled a pace or two in absolute horror. The face that looked back at him was that of his father as he had looked in the hospital just before he died. The face leered back at him and with a rather sneering tone the words came out, "Why did you leave me, Daddy? Was I bad? Did God make you die because I was bad?"

The shock of the words struck him down and as he knelt on the ground he began to cry. And then came the laugh again. Looking up, he saw that the boy had disappeared but in his place stood a very elegant lady in a mink coat, swaying slightly unsteadily and smoking a cigarette in a long black holder. In her other hand she held a cocktail glass and her full red lips were twisted in an amused smile.

"On your knees and begging for more... now that's the way I like my men! Come on, darling, where's your sense of fucking humour?" She pretended to look shocked. "Oh, pardon my French!..."

He was still on his knees, and as the sound of her laughter broke the silence of the night, he held his arms folded tight across his chest and, rocking ever so slightly, the tears streamed down his face.

"How's our little friend, eh? Our mutual friend, Mr. Dickens? Still finding it hard to stand up for long periods, is he? He should get out more, good for the circulation, or so I'm told." She threw her head back and laughed even louder. "Seriously, darling, where do you get your jollies nowadays?" Her eyes had a defocused look about them and she had started, ever so slightly, to slur her words. "Never been one of my problems, I must admit. Never had a problem in the 'man' department... except you, of course... you were 'in love,' weren't you, or so you once said? You wanted me to settle down and play happy families, didn't you? But I couldn't because my sodding plumbing was up the spout! The stop-cock was well and truly... stopped, wasn't it? I could not conceive. I was without fruit... barren... up the creek without a bloody paddle!... You're good with words, darling, why don't you have a go, please, be my guest.... "

High up in the "Gods" of the amphitheatre, a tiny figure caught his eye. He couldn't see what or who it might be but progress down the steps was evidently made difficult by the things they were carrying in both hands.

"Are you listening to me... you self-important little shit... did you hear what I said?... "

He turned and looked at her. She was crying now, her mascara had started to run and her lipstick had smudged slightly and suddenly he was back in the apartment they had shared before the divorce and he had just come home and he'd found her drunk on the Afghan carpet and crying, just like now. The gynaecologist's test results lay opened on the table... and he'd said nothing. He'd left her there, angry that she'd drunk so much, impotent in the face of such pain, physically unable to do what was required.... "Unfortunate choice of phrase... try again, try again.... " That was the problem... she'd needed comfort and he couldn't give it. "Just an arm about her shoulder, for God's sake, a hug, a comforting word, what sort of husband were you?" Life is full of such defining moments, stitches in time, ships lost for a ha'porth of tar, a tender kiss and a loving word and perhaps they could have carried on. But no, he'd gone for a walk and waited for her to sober up and pull herself together!

"My God, What have I done? I... I... I am so very, very sorry." He looked up to say more but she had gone. He jumped up and looked frantically about him. "Margot! Margot! Come back... I'm sorry... please forgive me!... " His words dissonated in wave upon wave rising to a deafening crescendo and then slowly subsiding until all that remained was the fleeting shadow of a phrase, "Forgive me, forgive me.... "

"Now do you understand why you are here?"

The words came from behind him and made him jump. He turned to see who had spoken and was greeted by the sight of a thin, disheveled man wrapped in filthy, ragged clothes with wild hair and a long, matted beard carrying a variety of plastic carrier bags in each hand and descending the steps with some difficulty. He was about twenty yards away, but the curious thing was that the voice seemed to have come from inside his head. The man stopped a few steps from the bottom and put his bags down.

"Ah, dear, so many steps, so many steps. Better sit down and catch my breath for a moment." The tramp put his bags on the steps either side of him and as he sat down he pulled a huge red handkerchief out of one of his overcoat pockets and wiped the sweat from his face. "Heh, heh, nearly didn't make it you know. Such a busy day. Still... I'm here now, that's all that matters." After a few adjustments to his coat and having run his fingers through the matted strands of his hair, he looked up at him and smiled.

"Remember me?"

"What are you doing here?"

Seemingly oblivious of having been addressed he carried on, "What do you think? Will I do?"

He stood there for a moment, confused by the rather dislocated nature of the conversation. "I beg your pardon?"

"I know the clothes are in a bit of a state and the whiskers could do with a trim, but books and covers, you know, books and covers."

"Did you hear what I said?"

The tramp was searching one of the carrier bags and didn't seem to be paying much attention. Eventually he seemed to find what he was looking for and pulled out a little black book. The corners of the cover had been worn down to the cardboard underneath and the spine was falling apart, the whole being held together by a thick elastic band which he took off. He was flicking through the pages rapidly, licking his thumb and forefinger every so often, when he seemed to remember something and looked up.