The Fall of Chance (18 page)

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 situation 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 weeks 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.

In one thing only, they were the same. The dance was fast; relentless in its escalating optimism. By its end, all the other dancers were red-faced, blown and spent. But Unt and Crystal were living on another plain and he felt the dance as little as she did.

The band crashed out with a final, triumphant flurry. The dancers stopped, the lights went up and Unt and Crystal faced each other in a partners’ embrace. The time had come, the spell had ended and reality resumed.

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Jaro’s heavy breath crunched his voice into the microphone. He mopped his sweaty brow and his costume was falling raggedly apart. In the light, Unt saw that the hall’s décor looked exhausted too. Here and there, the torn and beleaguered remnants of the sheets and bunting hung limply on the floor.

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” Jaro tried again, “What a way to go out! Give yourselves a round of applause. That’s a rare spin you’ve given us and you’ve topped our night off in fine fashion. As for topping your own nights off, well, you’ll have to arrange that yourselves. You’ve been a pleasure to entertain and I hope you’ve enjoyed our humble efforts.

“May Fate go with you all this evening. We’ve been the Odds Men, you’ve just been excellent, thank you and goodnight!”

That was the end of everything. Those words cut them off from etiquette’s guiding hand and left them to their own devices. A few moments’ hesitation rolled over the halted revellers like a moist, sweaty cloud and then the whole crowd crumbled apart.

Pairs of youngsters gravitated together or else made their way over to their families for final farewells. It wasn’t exactly a dissolution. Unt was reminded of when he poured cooking fat down the drain; the way its smooth, liquid properties quickly vanished with the heat and what was left were globules of sticky whiteness. The illusion was gone and the underlying reality remained.

He and Crystal were the last to move. It was as though one of them needed to speak before they could do so but neither knew what to say. No, they knew what they had to say; they just didn’t want to say it. An onlooker might have thought they were too hung-up on love to notice that the party had ended.

There were, however, two onlookers who were under no such illusions. Crystal’s parents were waiting to say goodbye. They had the appearance of having been cut from their anchor and now they drifted uncertainly in Unt and Crystal’s direction.

Landress was smiling but there were tears in her eyes. Ulson seemed to have swallowed his own down his long neck and they swelled in his throat as though choking him.

“Oh, my darling, we’re so proud of you,” Landress said to Crystal. Odd words; not exactly sensible, but there was no denying the sentiment when she flung her arms around her daughter. As she pressed herself against Crystal, her tears were impressed on to her child’s face. Crystal had no tears of her own but there were now hot, wet circles on her cheeks.

With Crystal’s gentle persuasion, she finally let go, allowing Ulson to step in. His passion was wrought into awkwardness. He leaned in stiffly, like there was no bend in his spine, and pulled her in from the shoulder-blades. He held her rigidly close. “You’re the finest girl we ever could have had,” he said, simply.

As they stepped back from Crystal they had to acknowledge Unt. All four of them would probably have been happier were it not the case but nevertheless, it had to be done.

“Unt, darling,” Landress took his hand in hers, “Look after her, won’t you?”

“I will,” he said and she hugged him, not passionately, like with Crystal, but in a kind of thanks.

Now Ulson stepped forward. He looked like he wanted to say something - maybe many things. Maybe he had fatherly advice, a warning, a plea or some random nugget of wisdom, but in the end, he said nothing. He just shook Unt’s hand and then stood there.

Both couples hovered. No-one knew how to take their leave. Ultimately, it was Landress who acted first. “You two had better be going,” she said. “Your father and I will stay and see if we can help with the clean-up.”

“Ok,” said Crystal, “Goodnight, Mother. Goodnight, Father.”

“Goodnight,” Unt added, nodding to them both.

The hall hadn’t quite emptied but there was no movement around the exit. Unt and Crystal walked unobstructed across the floor and out into the crisp spring air.

The open door projected a yellow rectangle of light into the street and as they stepped out into it, Unt took Crystal’s hand. She didn’t react but a movement of shadow in their patch of light made them both turn around.

Crystal’s parents were stood silhouetted against the light of the hall. Ulson had his arm over his wife’s shoulder. Unt and Crystal kept on walking.

They crept along in silence until they were past Fortune Square and onto the home stretch. On the way, they passed other couples. Some were just walking, others were kissing and some were chasing one another in and out the alleys. Everyone was caught up in their own excitement.

After the square, they turned down West Street and Unt felt the familiar squelch of perennial mud. Crystal slowed and he realised that for a girl in fancy clothes, mud was more than just an inconvenience. She didn’t complain, though: it might have been nice if she had.

He realised that this was a strange place for her and her new house would be just as strange. He decided he would have to warm her up to it and try to lead her into a home, not some cold destination.

He wondered if he should put his arm around her but that was stupid: they were still holding hands. There was no way he could pull out of that gentle intimacy and swap it for one that was more intrusive.

“You live at the end of this street?” It was Crystal who broke the silence.

“Last house, top of the ridge,” he confirmed. He hoped the suggestion of a view would please her. “Have you spent much time in this part of town?”

“No,” she answered. They walked on some more. “I suppose I’ll be spending a lot more now.”

It wasn’t a ringing endorsement but it was a seed of conversation. Taking heart, Unt tried to encourage her. “What did you think of the party?”

“It was lovely.”

Lovely. There were certain words that took on a different character depending on the sex of the speaker. “Lovely” was such a word. To a man, it always belonged in relation to a girl and it was a genteel way of admiring her looks. To a woman, it was a way of dressing up an object of extreme indifference.

It was a word that stalled their fledgling conversation until they reached Unt’s house.

Years of familiarity had made him forget how dark it got at the edge of town and Crystal had to cling close as he guided her to the porch. He opened the door to a deep, black house, roused a gas lamp from its day-long slumber and gave Crystal her first look at her new home.

“Here we are,” he said needlessly.

She looked slowly over the broad living area. “Nice,” she said. That was better than “lovely”, Unt supposed.

“Should I show you around?” he offered.

“Please.”

So he gave her the tour, such as it was. He lit the lamps around the room as they went and as they stood underneath them, each one lit up Crystal like a new and glorious revelation. As she looked into each room and absorbed its details, he looked her over and drank in every bit of her.

He deliberately set the lamps to a low burn, hoping the ambience would affect her mood. It certainly affected her appearance. The mellow glow caressed her figure as though the house had picked up on Unt’s emotions. The silky material that hugged her figure played with the light like liquid, the way a trickling stream pulls, pushes and twists sunlight in enticing patterns.

Each chance to look her over was too short-lived: about the time it took to look over a small room. He gulped her up like a thirsty man. Pearson had told him that women looked long and hard at every space, that the nesting instinct was strong in them, but he didn’t get that from Crystal.

She was taking her time to look but she didn’t seem to be thinking about what ornament would go where. It was more like a tool of delay. As long as they were doing this, they were in a safe place. When it ended, there’d be nowhere else to hide.

Unt plotted her a deliberate and - he hoped - subtle course. Spare bedroom; kitchen area; bathroom: all the non-threatening spaces he put up front. There was only one space at the end: his room.

All around the house, she’d stepped into each room to look it over. When she reached the bedroom, she stopped in the doorway like it was a cliff edge.

The full moon was spilling through the open windows, its clean beams picking up the bed like a natural spotlight. “And this is our room,” he concluded, feeling like he was pointing out her place of execution.

Crystal didn’t move or say anything. The moment dragged. “What now?” she asked. It was almost a plea.

How could he answer that? “Are you thirsty?” he tried. “Would you like a drink?”

“No, thank you,” she replied. More silence.

“Are you tired then?” It was a clumsy try.

“Not really,” she answered, “A little, I suppose.”

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, “I’m not used to this. I’ve been on my own so long I’m not sure what to do with someone else around.”

Where that came from, he didn’t know. Maybe he’d thought it would bring him some sympathy. Whatever the intent, it was clumsily played and it only deepened their mutual discomfort.

The heavy movement of the walnut clock’s hour hand made them both jump.

“One o’ clock,” said Unt. “It doesn’t seem a minute ago the party ended.”

“No.”

“I suppose it is pretty late.”

“Yes.”

“I think I might just go to bed.” There it was. He’d sort of forced things to a head. If Crystal didn’t follow, what was she going to do, stay up alone in a strange house? They both knew they’d have to face it sooner or later.

“Ok.” Her voice was almost a whisper.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked, deliberately leaving her with a choice to make.

“No, I’ll come too.” It was the concession of defeat. Unt felt a guilty thrill that he’d penetrated her defences. His heart and body both felt a skip of excitement but his deeper conscience threw shame at his feet.

He leaned in and with the closeness of his body, he gently shepherded her into the room. She stopped at the corner of the bed. “What side...” she let the question hang.

It took Unt off-guard. He’d never thought of that before. “I don’t know,” he said, “I fall asleep anywhere but I tend to wake up on the window side. I guess I sleep there, then, but take whichever side you like.”

“No, this is fine,” she murmured. As she walked slowly up the side of the bed, her hand drifted over the sheets.

Unt left her to her thoughts for a moment and went over to close the curtains. He left the shutters open, thinking they’d need the moonlight to see. As he stood there with his back to Crystal, he steeled himself and began to undress.

He didn’t know what to do with himself. Should he strip entirely before he got in or was it better to wait until he was under the covers and then take off his underwear?

He wasn’t ashamed of his body. He had no illusions of being the perfect physical specimen but he measured up all right. What worried him was that now he had a girl in his bed and the time was at hand, his body was reacting the way it was supposed to. He didn’t fancy crossing the room with
that
sticking out in front of him.