Section Thirty
She blinked. Shook her head.
This way he
This way he said.
He took her hand.
GO TO BLACK.
A street.
A high parapet.
City oozing below.
Motor cycle machismo lean-on dismounted feminismo, body-lean-against-body; body-lean-against parapet; lean-against-body -where are you?
Puma-menace purr of engine, too loud to be stealthy, too loud to be dangerous.
A turn aside.
Stone-honey walls.
Whooooooooshhh.
A courtyard.
Cool down cool down.
An alcove.
Tickets on a folding table, folded legs beneath.
Peaked cap on the table.
Man in Uniform.
Two-day shadow smile.
GO TO BLACK.
A Museum.
Small room.
Minor artefacts.
A jumble of plaster-and-gilt figures.
Kings and Queens and Asses and Oxen.
Like a very rich uncle's attic. Only half-cleared-out.
A squeeze of her hand.
A blink. A blink at the gloom.
GO TO BLACK.
She blinked. Blinked at the bright.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes. Why?"
"You went a little faint in there. I thought a bit of fresh air might do you good. No, stay there."
Pressure on the shoulders.
"Stay in the shade."
A glance around. Spacious terrace. Courtly trees.
"No, don't move. You'll be cool enough if you stop under the tree."
Watch the shadow. Watch the shadow.
"Are you going to be alright for a bit here? Just sit and relax."
GO TO BLACK.
GO TO WHITE.
A blare of brightness around her cone of shade. Alone. She could hear far-off police sirens. She looked around the loose angles, the splayed horizontal of the terrace. She yawned, stretched. She delved into the bag, removed the notebook, flicked it over and started to read it.
Notebook
Alone.
A concrete maze, a zig-zagged wind-tunnel.
People trudging into perspective and out again.
Everything squared - uprights and downrights and horizontals.
The wind curling and lifting everything, trapped and incessant - almost visible.
Echoing footsteps; it all seems to be magnified by this square bowl.
I put one foot in front of the other - I know how to do that even before going to University - and trudge.
Everything in my peripheral vision looks like chunks of background in a computer simulator. Identical blocks heave into view and heave out again.
The wind skids around corners, lifts my hair, lifts my clothes.
I am ensconced. I am halled-in in residence and now have my cubby-hole for the year.
I am venturing back out, to glimpse the outstretched world.
It is grey above. There is an imperceptible drizzle. Imperceptible. That is, it does not exist, but ought to.
People drift by, in groups, in cliques, in claques, identifying themselves with hockey clubs or rock bands or avant-garde film collectives.
A few side-glances. no overt greeting.
I proceed up the wind-tunnel a little further. A huddle of lower buildings together.
Things are happening here.
Administration is going on.
Things can't be worsened any further.
Let me submit to line, let me be registered, let them take the mark of me. I am always in line. I am always queuing for my destiny.
Somebody looks up. Frowns over his glasses. Smiles.
There is a smell of disinfectant.
What does it hide? What does it cover?
I hear a dull buzzing.
I hear voices raised, in jostling laughter.
I hear it all, but nothing sinks in.
I am lost in...
Lost in...
Lost in...
I am always whingeing about being lost.
The thing to do is go out and confront it.
There. Then. Here! Now!
She crashed the notebook into her rucksack and bounced to her feet.
The full blare of the sun hit her as she emerged from the protection of her tree. She rounded a small, decorative tower and went down some steps onto a lower terrace. Exotic trees flashed more hanks of pink and mauve before her eyes, but she continued.
Continued.
Stopped.
At A View.
It spread for miles, but she could still see every curve of every dome and every angle of every palace and every tenement in a choked sea of buildings; tug-ugly then galleon-stately, bunched-up to form a triangular tongue lapping out into the real sea, concrete-grey, mocking the blue sky, seemingly set in cement - Camorra cement.
There was a looming sense of Vesuvius there, but mist obscured it.
-This place is amazing! -But this is still not quite it yet. -Not quite. -Still got a bit too much Naples in it.
She retraced her steps and went back inside, found another passageway, and then found herself - confusingly - outside again.
A Great Cloister. Squared-off beneath a dainty prison-wall of sculptures and pediments.
She walked around the unkempt grass then plunged into the crystal-clean monochrome arcades with their grey and white marble floors, the patterns like marquetry, separated by great swathes of shadow cast by the pillars, turning them into beautifully ornate stepping-stones. She stepped out, avoiding the cracks, almost goose-stepping, the stretch was so great, and rounded a corner. And stopped.
A low stone rectangular fence caught her eye. She strolled over. When she got closer, she noticed that, like a bizarre set of cake decorations, the top of the wall was adorned with skulls. She stroked the head of one of them. Marble, not real. She walked around the perimeter, putting her fingers in the eyes of one of the death's heads, chucking the missing chin of another. -Are you dead?
Silence.
-Are you dead?
"Ah, there you are!"
"What?"
He was there again. At her shoulder, clutching a paper cup of water. Looking flustered. His breath bad again - worse than ever. Was he nervous? Did he perspire through his mouth like a dog?
"Sorry. Who are you?"
"What? Are you alright?"
She had a sudden spasm in her head. It all went silver. Then cleared. "Sorry. Stupid cruel joke. But I was a bit woozy. Still am, in fact. In fact, excuse me, but I'd totally forgotten you were here. Strange, that. Think I'm OK now, though. Have you been away a long time?"
"I certainly have. I didn't realise getting a a cup of water was such a long complicated process. We had a few linguistic problems as well. Then I had the Devil's own job finding you!"
"Careful! Language! We are standing next to a monks' cemetery, if I remember correctly." -All coming back now. -Stick with it.
"Dear me. This is all a bit ghoulish." He looked down at the paper cup, still in his hand. "Um, I don't know if it's tap or bottled."
"Doesn't matter. Thank you very much." She took it from him.
He had two tablets in his hand. "They're for headaches. I thought they might be useful."
"Thank you." -How did he know? She gulped down the tablets, downed the water in one, and crushed the paper cup in the palm of her hand.
"Have you seen the cribs?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No, but I'd like to."
As they left the cloister, he tried to hold her hand, but the crushed-up cup got in the way. She gestured him ahead, and as they stepped back into the shade, transferred the cup to the rear pocket of her jeans.
Women were sat gossiping and knitting in the passageway as they passed by. They didn't look up as the pair entered the room. She allowed her hand to slip into his as they stepped into the gloom.
There was a loud click and a light came on. Startled, she looked around. Another click. She jumped forward. Another click. Another light.
"They're automatic," hissed Giles.
She wasn't listening. She had stopped before a giant glass case that she'd just illuminated. Huge colourful diagonals of figures swept across the frame. The cast was a mixture of the traditional figures with more exotic additions: infant, parents, shepherds and soldiers, magi and musicians, cherubs and angels - these latter two species seemingly hanging in the air with no visible means of support. And near the centre, slightly to the right, two familiar figures: larger this time, but unmistakable. A woman with blonde hair. A balding man. Facing each other. Talking.
-Christmas is coming and the nerves are getting frayed.
A purple paper-hat floated across the glass of the case. She blinked her eyes. The figures were still there; the hat had disappeared.
"Are you alright?" They were still holding hands.
"Yes. Merry Christmas." Her ears with hissing again.
He smiled. "Seen enough?"
"Yes, thanks."
They walked out and strolled back across the courtyard. Embarrassed, they dropped hands. She switched her rucksack from her right to her left hand.
"Oh, did you get your view?"
"Er - yes, thanks. It was - er - lovely."
She blinked - a silver blink.
They crossed the street and leant over the parapet.
The city continued to ooze.
The leather-bound machismo and feminismo were leaning against each other even more intensely than before. Motorcycle chrome and metal studs on leather blared silver.
"Of course, that's the dreaded Spanish Quarter down there," he drawled.
She gazed down. The silver haze cleared. The black gridlocked street-lines loomed up like a portcullis then subsided again to a distant set of horizontals.
She focused on a gap in the wall, from where two young German female tourists were emerging, packs on their backs, moving past them, leaving the salt-linger of their sweat. She looked down at where they'd come from.
"Let's go back down those steps."
"Not me; you won't catch me going down there; I'm off to the funicular station."
"Oh, come on, don't be such a stick in the mud!"
"Stick in the mud or not, that's the way I'm going back - the conventional way."
"Coward!"
"Believe me, I'd rather be cowardly then foolhardy."
"Why, do you reckon it's that bad?"
"So they say. And I don't feel inclined to disbelieve them."
She pressed down on the top of the wall with the palms of her hands and levered herself up, suspended, to get a better view. "Well, I think I'll give it a whirl," she said brightly.
"Are you sure? Do you think you'll be alright down there?"
"Oh, yes. No problem."
"As you wish. Well, it's been nice bumping into you."
"Yes. Thanks a lot for bringing me here. It's been - great!"
"You feel alright now?"
"Yes. Thanks a lot for fetching the water. And for getting the tablets and everything. I feel a lot better already."
"Good. Good."
"Well, perhaps we might meet up again."
"Yes. I'd like that. Have you found a place to stay alright?"
"Yes."
"What's your address?"
"Um, I don't know. I haven't got it on me. I know how to get there but I can't remember what it's called. Listen, what I'll do is pop in with a message at the Youth Hostel - like we agreed before, OK?"
"Yes, fine." They both looked down the slope. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"
"Yes. Please don't fuss."
"Sorry." He leaned towards her but she leaned away. Stretched out her arm. Their hands were equally warm.
She put the rucksack back on her arm. "Right. A la prossima."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Until the next time."
"Ah. Yes. Goodbye."
"'Bye."
"i won't say good luck just goodbye"
She zigged and she zagged. -Ah, me. All the time here I seem to be zigging and zagging - perhaps all my life.
-THEN REGAIN THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW!
-Go away!
At the first turn, she looked back and saw Giles. He was leaning over the parapet. He seemed to have a strange grin on his face. He was gazing into space. He made no signal of recognition.
-Funny boy. -You let me go without demur, my little public school gentleman, didn't you? -Bit strange that. -For someone with such a developed sense of chivalry, you said goodbye with something almost approaching alacrity. -Perhaps you wanted something you realised you weren't going to get. -Perhaps my breath's as bad as yours! She chortled off down the slope, feet together, springing down three steps at a time, each jump at right angles to the other, like a novice skier learning to turn. Giles faded from view.
Two boys on mountain bikes emerged from below. She stopped her hog-tied hopping, embarrassed. They puffed and panted out of sight, paying her no heed. -So where's the mountain then, kids? -Still, I suppose you need something like that in this terrain. She made her way more gingerly down a section of crumbling curves and broken steps. There was a crunch of debris underfoot - broken glass. She kicked up a shower of it - saw it glisten.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
She heard voices. She realised she had travelled two sections with her eyes closed. Two youths were skulking against a wall. One started to move vaguely towards her, but the other one stretched out his arm and stopped him.
She passed the metal gates of the backyards of some houses, looking strangely suburban, then suddenly found herself on the lower street. -Now what now what now what? -Now where do I go?
She could see it, but there seemed no way down to it. She didn't know quite where she wanted to go. She faced towards the sea. Traffic buzzed by. Two old men passed her but she didn't have the nerve to ask them. Embarrassed, she sneaked the street-plan out of her bag, and unfolded it as she walked. Three girls passed by jostling and screaming. They stared at her a second but she did nothing. They went on their way. She heard them behind her, giggling. Were they laughing at her? -Don't get paranoid. She stopped, and leant on the wall at the side of the footpath. -Come on, there must be some sort of way into this place.
-DON'T GO!
-Piss off, mother!
-LANGUAGE!
She suddenly located a tiny set of steps on the map and looked back. -Christ, is that the only way down?
-LANGUAGE!
-Don't pester me, mother, I've got things to do!
-DON'T GO!
-I'm going.
-DON'T GO!
-I'm going.
-DON'T GO!
-I'm going.
A few quick strides and she was there, then down the steps.
Down to the gloom.
Tall and no light.
The Spanish Quarter.
Its rickety narrowness was thronged with balconies, each one a miniature theatre, each one rehearsing tragedies and comedies behind stage-curtains of dripping washing.
Every jerk of her knees was taking her down too fast. She was lost on the slippery downhill slope - she was off-piste. It was all too much.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
Her knees ached. Her tendons seemed to twang in protest at the indignity of gravity.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
She tried to take it in her stride, striding like a bad-knee-joint colossus through the depth and the blur and the confusion of such a rabbit-warren of a place, skipping around the tumble of produce spilling onto the street waiting to trip her feet like a tangle of roots, warding off the evil-eye of street-ragamuffins as they scooter-slammed their rubberised arcs down the alley round corners round corners leaving her quivering leaving her shivering
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
(a little old man his knobbly wooden head appearing in a shuttered gap like Brothers Grimm come alive)
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
(screaming to the uncaring street taking no notice himself like a leering figure in a mechanical clock)
She hurried on past. -Why the hell did that bastard leave me why the hell can't a woman walk the streets alone...
DIO DIO Dio Dio dio dio
(the sound dying away but the face still leaning out still looming up no smaller with perspective, splinters and melts hanging from the skin)
-What the hell am I doing here why the hell am I so bloody stupid he's only a deranged old man safe in his pen not going to do anyone any harm...
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
(there again: another hatch, same face)
She ran down the slope of the street like hell was pursuing her, she fell over a pile of cans of oil, bottles of water, bags of garlic, she tried to wrench her legs from the spill, got stuck, pulled her shoes and socks off, fled whimpering down the street, barefoot and bleeding...
Without glancing over her shoulder, she made it down to the Via Toledo. Swathed with people stretched-out with noise they didn't see her didn't hear her swept right through her...
diodioDioDioDIODIODIODIO
...the sound swelled down from the alleys swept across the street bounced back again...
...she tried to move she couldn't she was blood-scabbed to the spot she felt her back give as she tried to dive off her feet then the heavy black lines wrenched over and incarcerated her blocked her in up to her waist she made to knock against the side it evaporated...
"breathe more slowly"
...a rolled-out crumpling roar she stared down towards the Castell dell' Ovo the whole sky went dull silver a cloud erupted, flinging flakes of ash up the street then mushroomed over, blanking out the top and sides in powdered fog dense and clearing dense and clearing...
Her head twitched.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
She could smell nothing but sulphur.
She stared down at her feet. They were now unscathed they could wriggle but they were stuck at ball and heel to a silver walkway, she had to glance around to make sure she wasn't back at the station, had to check her hand to confirm she wasn't carrying her holdall, but the walkway was nowhere, it was humming horizontally to a choice of nowheres, it raced over snow-capped hills or plunged into the vastness of the fog.
A priest in a white robe and hat slid across her path obliquely - he had a fixed expression - he was like a frozen angel.
A glide and a crank and the coldness of steel plate sliding beneath her bare skin made her look down again - metal teeth snickering against each other - she had to flick her toes up to avoid the danger of catching a toenail as the walkway continued to grind excruciatingly - a whirring and screaming of metal against metal.
A figure was paddling away in the middle distance; draped in loops of swirling silver fog.
"Excuse me, I want to talk to you..."
(A massive diagonal swoop away, far off to the left, the misty sides of the vortex curling around the rupture.)
She reached for the handrail: she could feel nothing; there was none there she was sure but she couldn't be sure; she was fenced-in by fog too far to be able to see that far - up ahead the grinding mesh of semi-circles diverged in two paths, one over the hills, the other into darkness, but she couldn't move her feet; they were too widely planted, either side of the impending divide. She started to panic. "Where've you gone?"
(From straight on, a whipneck return from the depths of the fog.)
The figure glowered there, shimmering translucently. The hum had not subsided. A ragged row of eight white skulls appeared and hovered. She felt a twinge behind her right knee. The moan droned on. It seemed to suppurate the fog.
"Look, I really need to speak to you, OK?"
(A needle-like silver pinpoint of light shone from the figure.)
"PRESERVE YOUR INDEPENDENCE."
(The voice was muffled by the fog but also echoing.)
"Won't you stay still for a minute?"
"OFTEN I DO.
BUT SOMETIMES I HAVE TO MOVE."
(Her calf muscle pulled - made her wince.)
"Why?"
"DO NOT ASK."
"Where is he?"
"DO NOT ASK."
"Why not?"
"IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE TO ASK."
(A shower of silver glass fell like rain. She ducked.)
"Are you God?"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?."
"Are you a God?"
"DO NOT ASK."
"Why won't you tell me?"
"I CANNOT. IT IS NOT MY PLACE."
"Why? What are you doing here?"
THEN I MOVE AWAY.
SOMETIMES I COME BACK."
"Where the hell am I?"
"YOU'VE ALREADY SAID IT."
"What am I doing here?"
"JUST PASSING THROUGH."
"What about the rest of them?"
"NO. JUST YOU. YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO BE JUST PASSING THROUGH."
"Well, what are the rest of you doing?."
"CAN'T YOU GUESS?
WE GO WHERE WE'RE PUT."
"If you survive!"
"IF WE SURVIVE."
(From behind her, a black skull pranged out over her shoulder
and collided with one of the white ones floating in front of her;
they were like conkers; the black one shattered to fragments;
the white one remained intact.)
"Are you dead?
No, not you, I mean him, I mean, is he,
I mean - I don't know what I mean.
I mean - did he survive?"
"HE ALWAYS SURVIVES.
HE MIGHT LOSE BUT HE ALWAYS SURVIVES."
"So he's definitely not dead?"
"I HAVE TO GO."
(A long-slide backwards)
She tried to wrench her neck round to see where the figure had gone but her feet were too firmly anchored. She heard nothing more above the roar save the slip-slapping, the dull plop of her own feet
The walkway stopped.
The walkway started up again.
There he was there there he was there but he side-stepped just one pace away, a pale strand of light rebounding from his forehead; she tried to reach out but her shoulder was stiff and she flailed past, empty-handed. The whole world crackled with
Static.
Sparks flew from the mist as two youths on a scooter - the two youths on a scooter - pasty-faced, dressed in white leather, powered towards her, then stopped and reared upright, and a dextrous wheelie sent them off at right angles to invisibility.
She gaped wide. Breathed hard. The cold mist was sucked inside.
The boom of the explosion hung around inside her head. It was absorbed into her gums, and made her teeth ache.
The walkway was still clanking towards the rift in its course, her feet were stuck, she was going to split in two, it clanked ever-closer, she could now see a tower looming out of the mist it was the tower from the garden at San Martino the plates of metal were sparking now as the were wrenched aside she swallow-dived at the tower her fingernails clung to its stonework her feet unglued free and she clung there, sobbing.
She caught her breath, She looked down at her bleeding fingernails. Breathed a sigh.
-YOU WENT CLOSE THAT TIME! SOON YOU WILL GO TOO CLOSE UNLESS YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!
A face appeared, strands of features reconstituting through the fast-disappearing gloom.
-You!
-WELL, WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE?
"You fucking cow!"
She heard her own voice echoing away just as the hum and the toothache faded away, and the face faded away, and the world lost its silver sheen. It was like coming round after a dental anaesthetic. Her teeth no longer ached. Her fingernails were whole.
People in the street turned to stare as they passed by. She was outside the pensione. Her feet were aching. She looked down and saw that her shoes were back on.
This way he
This way he said.
He took her hand.
GO TO BLACK.
A street.
A high parapet.
City oozing below.
Motor cycle machismo lean-on dismounted feminismo, body-lean-against-body; body-lean-against parapet; lean-against-body -where are you?
Puma-menace purr of engine, too loud to be stealthy, too loud to be dangerous.
A turn aside.
Stone-honey walls.
Whooooooooshhh.
A courtyard.
Cool down cool down.
An alcove.
Tickets on a folding table, folded legs beneath.
Peaked cap on the table.
Man in Uniform.
Two-day shadow smile.
GO TO BLACK.
A Museum.
Small room.
Minor artefacts.
A jumble of plaster-and-gilt figures.
Kings and Queens and Asses and Oxen.
Like a very rich uncle's attic. Only half-cleared-out.
A squeeze of her hand.
A blink. A blink at the gloom.
GO TO BLACK.
She blinked. Blinked at the bright.
"Are you alright?"
"Yes. Why?"
"You went a little faint in there. I thought a bit of fresh air might do you good. No, stay there."
Pressure on the shoulders.
"Stay in the shade."
A glance around. Spacious terrace. Courtly trees.
"No, don't move. You'll be cool enough if you stop under the tree."
Watch the shadow. Watch the shadow.
"Are you going to be alright for a bit here? Just sit and relax."
GO TO BLACK.
GO TO WHITE.
A blare of brightness around her cone of shade. Alone. She could hear far-off police sirens. She looked around the loose angles, the splayed horizontal of the terrace. She yawned, stretched. She delved into the bag, removed the notebook, flicked it over and started to read it.
Notebook
Alone.
A concrete maze, a zig-zagged wind-tunnel.
People trudging into perspective and out again.
Everything squared - uprights and downrights and horizontals.
The wind curling and lifting everything, trapped and incessant - almost visible.
Echoing footsteps; it all seems to be magnified by this square bowl.
I put one foot in front of the other - I know how to do that even before going to University - and trudge.
Everything in my peripheral vision looks like chunks of background in a computer simulator. Identical blocks heave into view and heave out again.
The wind skids around corners, lifts my hair, lifts my clothes.
I am ensconced. I am halled-in in residence and now have my cubby-hole for the year.
I am venturing back out, to glimpse the outstretched world.
It is grey above. There is an imperceptible drizzle. Imperceptible. That is, it does not exist, but ought to.
People drift by, in groups, in cliques, in claques, identifying themselves with hockey clubs or rock bands or avant-garde film collectives.
A few side-glances. no overt greeting.
I proceed up the wind-tunnel a little further. A huddle of lower buildings together.
Things are happening here.
Administration is going on.
Things can't be worsened any further.
Let me submit to line, let me be registered, let them take the mark of me. I am always in line. I am always queuing for my destiny.
Somebody looks up. Frowns over his glasses. Smiles.
There is a smell of disinfectant.
What does it hide? What does it cover?
I hear a dull buzzing.
I hear voices raised, in jostling laughter.
I hear it all, but nothing sinks in.
I am lost in...
Lost in...
Lost in...
I am always whingeing about being lost.
The thing to do is go out and confront it.
There. Then. Here! Now!
She crashed the notebook into her rucksack and bounced to her feet.
The full blare of the sun hit her as she emerged from the protection of her tree. She rounded a small, decorative tower and went down some steps onto a lower terrace. Exotic trees flashed more hanks of pink and mauve before her eyes, but she continued.
Continued.
Stopped.
At A View.
It spread for miles, but she could still see every curve of every dome and every angle of every palace and every tenement in a choked sea of buildings; tug-ugly then galleon-stately, bunched-up to form a triangular tongue lapping out into the real sea, concrete-grey, mocking the blue sky, seemingly set in cement - Camorra cement.
There was a looming sense of Vesuvius there, but mist obscured it.
-This place is amazing! -But this is still not quite it yet. -Not quite. -Still got a bit too much Naples in it.
She retraced her steps and went back inside, found another passageway, and then found herself - confusingly - outside again.
A Great Cloister. Squared-off beneath a dainty prison-wall of sculptures and pediments.
She walked around the unkempt grass then plunged into the crystal-clean monochrome arcades with their grey and white marble floors, the patterns like marquetry, separated by great swathes of shadow cast by the pillars, turning them into beautifully ornate stepping-stones. She stepped out, avoiding the cracks, almost goose-stepping, the stretch was so great, and rounded a corner. And stopped.
A low stone rectangular fence caught her eye. She strolled over. When she got closer, she noticed that, like a bizarre set of cake decorations, the top of the wall was adorned with skulls. She stroked the head of one of them. Marble, not real. She walked around the perimeter, putting her fingers in the eyes of one of the death's heads, chucking the missing chin of another. -Are you dead?
Silence.
-Are you dead?
"Ah, there you are!"
"What?"
He was there again. At her shoulder, clutching a paper cup of water. Looking flustered. His breath bad again - worse than ever. Was he nervous? Did he perspire through his mouth like a dog?
"Sorry. Who are you?"
"What? Are you alright?"
She had a sudden spasm in her head. It all went silver. Then cleared. "Sorry. Stupid cruel joke. But I was a bit woozy. Still am, in fact. In fact, excuse me, but I'd totally forgotten you were here. Strange, that. Think I'm OK now, though. Have you been away a long time?"
"I certainly have. I didn't realise getting a a cup of water was such a long complicated process. We had a few linguistic problems as well. Then I had the Devil's own job finding you!"
"Careful! Language! We are standing next to a monks' cemetery, if I remember correctly." -All coming back now. -Stick with it.
"Dear me. This is all a bit ghoulish." He looked down at the paper cup, still in his hand. "Um, I don't know if it's tap or bottled."
"Doesn't matter. Thank you very much." She took it from him.
He had two tablets in his hand. "They're for headaches. I thought they might be useful."
"Thank you." -How did he know? She gulped down the tablets, downed the water in one, and crushed the paper cup in the palm of her hand.
"Have you seen the cribs?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No, but I'd like to."
As they left the cloister, he tried to hold her hand, but the crushed-up cup got in the way. She gestured him ahead, and as they stepped back into the shade, transferred the cup to the rear pocket of her jeans.
Women were sat gossiping and knitting in the passageway as they passed by. They didn't look up as the pair entered the room. She allowed her hand to slip into his as they stepped into the gloom.
There was a loud click and a light came on. Startled, she looked around. Another click. She jumped forward. Another click. Another light.
"They're automatic," hissed Giles.
She wasn't listening. She had stopped before a giant glass case that she'd just illuminated. Huge colourful diagonals of figures swept across the frame. The cast was a mixture of the traditional figures with more exotic additions: infant, parents, shepherds and soldiers, magi and musicians, cherubs and angels - these latter two species seemingly hanging in the air with no visible means of support. And near the centre, slightly to the right, two familiar figures: larger this time, but unmistakable. A woman with blonde hair. A balding man. Facing each other. Talking.
-Christmas is coming and the nerves are getting frayed.
A purple paper-hat floated across the glass of the case. She blinked her eyes. The figures were still there; the hat had disappeared.
"Are you alright?" They were still holding hands.
"Yes. Merry Christmas." Her ears with hissing again.
He smiled. "Seen enough?"
"Yes, thanks."
They walked out and strolled back across the courtyard. Embarrassed, they dropped hands. She switched her rucksack from her right to her left hand.
"Oh, did you get your view?"
"Er - yes, thanks. It was - er - lovely."
She blinked - a silver blink.
They crossed the street and leant over the parapet.
The city continued to ooze.
The leather-bound machismo and feminismo were leaning against each other even more intensely than before. Motorcycle chrome and metal studs on leather blared silver.
"Of course, that's the dreaded Spanish Quarter down there," he drawled.
She gazed down. The silver haze cleared. The black gridlocked street-lines loomed up like a portcullis then subsided again to a distant set of horizontals.
She focused on a gap in the wall, from where two young German female tourists were emerging, packs on their backs, moving past them, leaving the salt-linger of their sweat. She looked down at where they'd come from.
"Let's go back down those steps."
"Not me; you won't catch me going down there; I'm off to the funicular station."
"Oh, come on, don't be such a stick in the mud!"
"Stick in the mud or not, that's the way I'm going back - the conventional way."
"Coward!"
"Believe me, I'd rather be cowardly then foolhardy."
"Why, do you reckon it's that bad?"
"So they say. And I don't feel inclined to disbelieve them."
She pressed down on the top of the wall with the palms of her hands and levered herself up, suspended, to get a better view. "Well, I think I'll give it a whirl," she said brightly.
"Are you sure? Do you think you'll be alright down there?"
"Oh, yes. No problem."
"As you wish. Well, it's been nice bumping into you."
"Yes. Thanks a lot for bringing me here. It's been - great!"
"You feel alright now?"
"Yes. Thanks a lot for fetching the water. And for getting the tablets and everything. I feel a lot better already."
"Good. Good."
"Well, perhaps we might meet up again."
"Yes. I'd like that. Have you found a place to stay alright?"
"Yes."
"What's your address?"
"Um, I don't know. I haven't got it on me. I know how to get there but I can't remember what it's called. Listen, what I'll do is pop in with a message at the Youth Hostel - like we agreed before, OK?"
"Yes, fine." They both looked down the slope. "Are you sure you'll be alright?"
"Yes. Please don't fuss."
"Sorry." He leaned towards her but she leaned away. Stretched out her arm. Their hands were equally warm.
She put the rucksack back on her arm. "Right. A la prossima."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Until the next time."
"Ah. Yes. Goodbye."
"'Bye."
"i won't say good luck just goodbye"
She zigged and she zagged. -Ah, me. All the time here I seem to be zigging and zagging - perhaps all my life.
-THEN REGAIN THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW!
-Go away!
At the first turn, she looked back and saw Giles. He was leaning over the parapet. He seemed to have a strange grin on his face. He was gazing into space. He made no signal of recognition.
-Funny boy. -You let me go without demur, my little public school gentleman, didn't you? -Bit strange that. -For someone with such a developed sense of chivalry, you said goodbye with something almost approaching alacrity. -Perhaps you wanted something you realised you weren't going to get. -Perhaps my breath's as bad as yours! She chortled off down the slope, feet together, springing down three steps at a time, each jump at right angles to the other, like a novice skier learning to turn. Giles faded from view.
Two boys on mountain bikes emerged from below. She stopped her hog-tied hopping, embarrassed. They puffed and panted out of sight, paying her no heed. -So where's the mountain then, kids? -Still, I suppose you need something like that in this terrain. She made her way more gingerly down a section of crumbling curves and broken steps. There was a crunch of debris underfoot - broken glass. She kicked up a shower of it - saw it glisten.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
She heard voices. She realised she had travelled two sections with her eyes closed. Two youths were skulking against a wall. One started to move vaguely towards her, but the other one stretched out his arm and stopped him.
She passed the metal gates of the backyards of some houses, looking strangely suburban, then suddenly found herself on the lower street. -Now what now what now what? -Now where do I go?
She could see it, but there seemed no way down to it. She didn't know quite where she wanted to go. She faced towards the sea. Traffic buzzed by. Two old men passed her but she didn't have the nerve to ask them. Embarrassed, she sneaked the street-plan out of her bag, and unfolded it as she walked. Three girls passed by jostling and screaming. They stared at her a second but she did nothing. They went on their way. She heard them behind her, giggling. Were they laughing at her? -Don't get paranoid. She stopped, and leant on the wall at the side of the footpath. -Come on, there must be some sort of way into this place.
-DON'T GO!
-Piss off, mother!
-LANGUAGE!
She suddenly located a tiny set of steps on the map and looked back. -Christ, is that the only way down?
-LANGUAGE!
-Don't pester me, mother, I've got things to do!
-DON'T GO!
-I'm going.
-DON'T GO!
-I'm going.
-DON'T GO!
-I'm going.
A few quick strides and she was there, then down the steps.
Down to the gloom.
Tall and no light.
The Spanish Quarter.
Its rickety narrowness was thronged with balconies, each one a miniature theatre, each one rehearsing tragedies and comedies behind stage-curtains of dripping washing.
Every jerk of her knees was taking her down too fast. She was lost on the slippery downhill slope - she was off-piste. It was all too much.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
Her knees ached. Her tendons seemed to twang in protest at the indignity of gravity.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
She tried to take it in her stride, striding like a bad-knee-joint colossus through the depth and the blur and the confusion of such a rabbit-warren of a place, skipping around the tumble of produce spilling onto the street waiting to trip her feet like a tangle of roots, warding off the evil-eye of street-ragamuffins as they scooter-slammed their rubberised arcs down the alley round corners round corners leaving her quivering leaving her shivering
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
(a little old man his knobbly wooden head appearing in a shuttered gap like Brothers Grimm come alive)
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
(screaming to the uncaring street taking no notice himself like a leering figure in a mechanical clock)
She hurried on past. -Why the hell did that bastard leave me why the hell can't a woman walk the streets alone...
DIO DIO Dio Dio dio dio
(the sound dying away but the face still leaning out still looming up no smaller with perspective, splinters and melts hanging from the skin)
-What the hell am I doing here why the hell am I so bloody stupid he's only a deranged old man safe in his pen not going to do anyone any harm...
DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO DIO
(there again: another hatch, same face)
She ran down the slope of the street like hell was pursuing her, she fell over a pile of cans of oil, bottles of water, bags of garlic, she tried to wrench her legs from the spill, got stuck, pulled her shoes and socks off, fled whimpering down the street, barefoot and bleeding...
Without glancing over her shoulder, she made it down to the Via Toledo. Swathed with people stretched-out with noise they didn't see her didn't hear her swept right through her...
diodioDioDioDIODIODIODIO
...the sound swelled down from the alleys swept across the street bounced back again...
...she tried to move she couldn't she was blood-scabbed to the spot she felt her back give as she tried to dive off her feet then the heavy black lines wrenched over and incarcerated her blocked her in up to her waist she made to knock against the side it evaporated...
"breathe more slowly"
...a rolled-out crumpling roar she stared down towards the Castell dell' Ovo the whole sky went dull silver a cloud erupted, flinging flakes of ash up the street then mushroomed over, blanking out the top and sides in powdered fog dense and clearing dense and clearing...
Her head twitched.
SILVER SILVER SILVER.
She could smell nothing but sulphur.
She stared down at her feet. They were now unscathed they could wriggle but they were stuck at ball and heel to a silver walkway, she had to glance around to make sure she wasn't back at the station, had to check her hand to confirm she wasn't carrying her holdall, but the walkway was nowhere, it was humming horizontally to a choice of nowheres, it raced over snow-capped hills or plunged into the vastness of the fog.
A priest in a white robe and hat slid across her path obliquely - he had a fixed expression - he was like a frozen angel.
A glide and a crank and the coldness of steel plate sliding beneath her bare skin made her look down again - metal teeth snickering against each other - she had to flick her toes up to avoid the danger of catching a toenail as the walkway continued to grind excruciatingly - a whirring and screaming of metal against metal.
A figure was paddling away in the middle distance; draped in loops of swirling silver fog.
"Excuse me, I want to talk to you..."
(A massive diagonal swoop away, far off to the left, the misty sides of the vortex curling around the rupture.)
She reached for the handrail: she could feel nothing; there was none there she was sure but she couldn't be sure; she was fenced-in by fog too far to be able to see that far - up ahead the grinding mesh of semi-circles diverged in two paths, one over the hills, the other into darkness, but she couldn't move her feet; they were too widely planted, either side of the impending divide. She started to panic. "Where've you gone?"
(From straight on, a whipneck return from the depths of the fog.)
The figure glowered there, shimmering translucently. The hum had not subsided. A ragged row of eight white skulls appeared and hovered. She felt a twinge behind her right knee. The moan droned on. It seemed to suppurate the fog.
"Look, I really need to speak to you, OK?"
(A needle-like silver pinpoint of light shone from the figure.)
"PRESERVE YOUR INDEPENDENCE."
(The voice was muffled by the fog but also echoing.)
"Won't you stay still for a minute?"
"OFTEN I DO.
BUT SOMETIMES I HAVE TO MOVE."
(Her calf muscle pulled - made her wince.)
"Why?"
"DO NOT ASK."
"Where is he?"
"DO NOT ASK."
"Why not?"
"IT IS NOT YOUR PLACE TO ASK."
(A shower of silver glass fell like rain. She ducked.)
"Are you God?"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN?."
"Are you a God?"
"DO NOT ASK."
"Why won't you tell me?"
"I CANNOT. IT IS NOT MY PLACE."
"Why? What are you doing here?"
THEN I MOVE AWAY.
SOMETIMES I COME BACK."
"Where the hell am I?"
"YOU'VE ALREADY SAID IT."
"What am I doing here?"
"JUST PASSING THROUGH."
"What about the rest of them?"
"NO. JUST YOU. YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE ALLOWED TO BE JUST PASSING THROUGH."
"Well, what are the rest of you doing?."
"CAN'T YOU GUESS?
WE GO WHERE WE'RE PUT."
"If you survive!"
"IF WE SURVIVE."
(From behind her, a black skull pranged out over her shoulder
and collided with one of the white ones floating in front of her;
they were like conkers; the black one shattered to fragments;
the white one remained intact.)
"Are you dead?
No, not you, I mean him, I mean, is he,
I mean - I don't know what I mean.
I mean - did he survive?"
"HE ALWAYS SURVIVES.
HE MIGHT LOSE BUT HE ALWAYS SURVIVES."
"So he's definitely not dead?"
"I HAVE TO GO."
(A long-slide backwards)
She tried to wrench her neck round to see where the figure had gone but her feet were too firmly anchored. She heard nothing more above the roar save the slip-slapping, the dull plop of her own feet
The walkway stopped.
The walkway started up again.
There he was there there he was there but he side-stepped just one pace away, a pale strand of light rebounding from his forehead; she tried to reach out but her shoulder was stiff and she flailed past, empty-handed. The whole world crackled with
Static.
Sparks flew from the mist as two youths on a scooter - the two youths on a scooter - pasty-faced, dressed in white leather, powered towards her, then stopped and reared upright, and a dextrous wheelie sent them off at right angles to invisibility.
She gaped wide. Breathed hard. The cold mist was sucked inside.
The boom of the explosion hung around inside her head. It was absorbed into her gums, and made her teeth ache.
The walkway was still clanking towards the rift in its course, her feet were stuck, she was going to split in two, it clanked ever-closer, she could now see a tower looming out of the mist it was the tower from the garden at San Martino the plates of metal were sparking now as the were wrenched aside she swallow-dived at the tower her fingernails clung to its stonework her feet unglued free and she clung there, sobbing.
She caught her breath, She looked down at her bleeding fingernails. Breathed a sigh.
-YOU WENT CLOSE THAT TIME! SOON YOU WILL GO TOO CLOSE UNLESS YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!
A face appeared, strands of features reconstituting through the fast-disappearing gloom.
-You!
-WELL, WHO ELSE WOULD IT BE?
"You fucking cow!"
She heard her own voice echoing away just as the hum and the toothache faded away, and the face faded away, and the world lost its silver sheen. It was like coming round after a dental anaesthetic. Her teeth no longer ached. Her fingernails were whole.
People in the street turned to stare as they passed by. She was outside the pensione. Her feet were aching. She looked down and saw that her shoes were back on.
© 2006 by Adrian Benson
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