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Chapter 1 - The Blue LullabyJun 30 '02 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Please read, if you have some spare time and enjoy handing out constructive criticism!
Wow! I have found the Writer's Corner! Well, this just might be the thing that makes me stay around. Anyway, I've been riffling through my files for something to contribute, and came up with this. It's the first chapter from an as-yet-unfinished novel. If you have some spare time you may like to browse through... and any comments would be much appreciated. (Constructive criticism would be useful - heartless criticism would make me cry *sobs*. Only kidding - say what you like!) Oh yes, and because I am English some of the vocabulary may sound weird. I thought I'd better warn you because the action takes place in a tube. (It's a subway.) OK, then, here it goes... You got a strange lot, amassed in the tube. They had nothing in common; each inhabiting their own world with their own loves and hates and ambitions and fears and eventual destination. All fiercely independent. Their world was where they lived, and the universe outside didn’t bother them that much. Well, why should it? As soon as the train pulled in they would leave, immersed in their own busy lives and going about their own private business. They’d never see the rest of them again. For now, though, they were together. Too close for comfort. United in claustrophobia. They could guess their neighbour’s breakfast from the stench of their breath. They could read what their neighbour was keying into their pager, or hear a faint buzz of their Walkman, and for the moment they could snatch a glimpse into someone else’s realm. Danny noticed everything. He watched people like others watched soaps, but real people left more scope for intrigue. None were quite as they appeared. They were just adept performers, assuming roles and wearing masks. What were they really like? The businessman with his status symbols – his Rolex watch and Wap phone and executive briefcase – did he ever have a slobbish Saturday? Any days where he lounged about in underpants only and watched the match, while his long-suffering lady hovered round contemplating divorce? What about the little girl, asleep on her mam’s lap? Where would she be in twenty years time? And what would it be like when she tried to break away? Now and again, he saw it. Just a fleeting look – it would brush their faces, skim their smiles – and he thought he knew. Today, Danny sat next to an old lady. She was the archetypal Granny; all cosy and twinkling, with an aura of tea-cosies and home-baked bread. It was rare to find a granny like that these days. Most thought each inch of make-up took a decade off their age. But true granny-hood was – or should be – an asset. There was a lifetime’s well of wisdom there; a lesson learnt for every crow’s foot. “Seven down, dear, an anagram. Nice ham?” Danny shrugged. “Beats me. I’m dyslexic.” “Oh, I’m sorry,” She spoke in tones of genuine sorriness, eyes agog with sympathy. A shame, it was. Such a nice young man, and such a cruel, wasting illness. She edged away, just in case it was catching. Danny warmed to her naďvety. “Where are you headed, then?” he asked pleasantly. “Just off to see my daughter,” she replied, the twinkle returning. “She’s on maternity leave at the moment – it’s her third. Don’t suppose you have any little ones, do you?” “Ah – no, not yet,” Danny told her. A white lie was easier than explaining. Especially when you didn’t have hours or a spare pack of Kleenex. “So then, my son. Going to work?” “Nope. Like you, it’s family business today,” he admitted. Technically, he should be at work. But the incentive to be there had gone. The factory caged him in. While other men flaunted their brains and got promoted and had affairs with the secretary, he packaged soap. And while other men went to board meetings and climbed the career ladder and sent people to buy them cappuccinos, he packaged soap. He had a recurring nightmare about soap. At home, if possible, he used hand-wash. To tell the truth, he wasn’t working much these days. He’d tell his mother there’d been a strike, or the boiler had burst. OK, so she wasn’t that gullible and he wasn’t that good a liar, but no matter how transparent, he’d be welcome. Especially if he’d come so far to see her. Actually, it would benefit them both. He’d get a sense of duty done, and presumably she’d be delighted. He could compensate for lots by being a good son. “What’s in there, my dear?” asked Granny. Her interest in seven down was waning, replaced by questions and speculations. Who was this tall black stranger; with his family business and terminal dyslexia and mysterious leather case? “This?” Danny stroked the case reverently. “This, ma’am, is my magic wand.” He showed her the sax inside; gleaming, waiting. Full of potential, full of magic. “I busk on the tube. You’ll hear me in a bit.” The tube was the best place for it, ‘cause the audience had no escape. They came on clamouring for five minutes peace. He had time to let his music talk. Tell them what they really wanted. Danny’s music spoke sense into senseless minds. It soothed away stress; it cleared away confusion. It loosened tongues for gossip and serenaded those whispered sweet nothings. It changed the destiny of a journey. “Well I never,” remarked the old lady, sporting an isn’t-that-lovely expression that would have looked patronising on anyone else. “I’m gagging to hear you. I’ll just look through my purse – though I don’t think I’ve much loose change and I need to buy a coffee at the station...” “No worries, really,” said Danny quickly. Busking earned him coppers. Relatively speaking, his factory wage was wealth, and that itself was barely enough to pay the rent. “I don’t do it for cash, I just love to play.” He lived to play, he breathed to play. Howling, rich and bluesy, the sax was the most expressive thing he knew. And when he played, he had a purpose. Something inside of him, something intangible but very real – that something felt complete. He was not just Danny from the East End, Danny who packaged soap and had no luck with girls. With his sax, he was a man on a mission. He stood there in the aisle and touched it gingerly. The old lady was beaming at him, egging him on. “I’ll play something for you,” Danny thought. “You’d appreciate it.” Danny had never had a grandmother. Well, technically there was Granny Holliday, but, living in Jamaica, she was hardly predisposed to come and stay and buy them sweets. The one time they saw her was at his father’s funeral. A sad, lonely woman, brown and wizened as a walnut, out of place and all in black. Her colours shrouded by grief. A pity. There was something so secure about grannies. He gazed at the throng and drank in detail. His eyes darted back and forth, browsing through the entrepreneurs and the unemployed; the school-kids and civil servants; the smiling and the sombre;the bored and... quite frankly, the boring. Suddenly, he stopped. He’d seen her. He felt a jolt. At a guess, she was his age, twenty-nine or thirty at a push. She was frighteningly chic; sharp black jacket and skirt, perfectly manicured hands clasped round a leather Armani bag. Her hair was a brilliant shade of mahogany and the roots betrayed zilch. Her body spoke of punishing workouts, mung-bean salad and tomato juice. Curveless as a rod. She extricated a personal organiser and absorbed herself in appointments. Nothing else mattered, none of it. She was a professional. Icy and aloof. Detatched from her surroundings. There were more important things to worry about. It wasn’t looks that attracted Danny, because besides the formidable coldness, she wasn’t much of a looker. Her face was too pallid; her legs too skinny; her cheeks too hollow and her jawline too pronounced. Danny went for big, busty Jamaican women wearing over-loud lipstick and not much else. But she had such beautiful eyes. Powerful like thunder and a deep, seascape blue. They told him things that no-one else guessed. They peeled back the facade of glamour and bared the ugly truth. Sorrow. She suddenly looked very young and very vulnerable; almost like a tired child. Sorry Granny, but this tune’s for her. Danny could barely read music. Presented with a sheet of score, he’d be at a loss. It was just Morse Code through the fog in his head – random dots and stalks and squiggles and lines. But he was a fantastic improvisist. He’d feel a mood, catch a vibe, and reword it into music. He never played songs. They always sounded flat, somehow. Insipid and flat. Music, he thought, should be spontaneous like a conversation. Some musicians tried too hard. They gave it eloquence, the polished smoothness of a speech. But Danny never worried what to play. It was no harder than prattling on down the pub. He wanted now to talk to the sad-eyed girl. He wanted to soothe her, to protect her and tell her everything was gonna be OK. Maybe it would be, maybe it wouldn’t. How was he to know? Life was dicey. All the same, it was what she had to hear. He put his sax to his lips and thought about her haunting, hurting face. The mood in the carriage relaxed. A crying baby stopped. Two teenagers, deep in some inane quarrel over a lip-gloss, let it be. The old lady abandoned the crossword to luxuriate in the music; eyes shut, smile curled on her weather-beaten lips. And the girl herself? Weird, it was. She fell asleep. The organiser crashed to the ground. A cell-phone beeped urgently. She didn’t stir. Danny wondered who’d sent the message – a boyfriend, a mate? More likely some sour-faced boss with a catalogue of early-morning demands. Well for once, she wouldn’t meet them, so sucks to the boss! He was adamant. She needed her peace. He played his blue lullaby; charming her like a snake. Soon Granny reached her station. She looked younger, somehow. Still as wise as her years, but a new vibrancy shone through and out-eclipsed the wrinkles. “Thank you, my dear,” she whispered. “I won’t forget you. God bless.” She planted paper money in his cap and rushed off, embarrassed, avoiding the gratitude and forfeiting the coffee. The carriage was emptying now; people were filtering out and not being replaced. As if in correlation, the flow of notes had dried up too. Danny called it quits and examined the damage he’d done. She was still asleep. Something told him they’d passed her stop – the briefcases and broadsheets had left twenty minutes ago. More out of curiosity than consideration, he tapped her cheek. It was cold and white as marble. She lurched out her trance, and shrank away, revolted at the stranger’s touch. She was an uncompromising career girl once more. “Excuse me, would you mind telling me where we are?” she enquired, eyeing Danny in some suspicion. He told her and watched as she tried to conceal her self-disgust. How could she? How could she have fallen asleep on a day like today? That never happened to her, no, never. And today of all days. The Big Day. Her mouth suckered into a tight, prudish slit. The train pulled in and she leapt out; away from Danny’s life. For now, at any rate.  |
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