A door opened at the back of the stage.
Saul stiffened. Natasha emerged from the depths of the building, into the sound and fury. Saul caught his breath. He gripped the grille on which he crawled until his fingers hurt. She looked breathtaking. But she was thin, much too thin, and she moved as if she was in a dream.
Where was the Piper? Was she here of her free will? Saul stared at her in consternation. He saw headphones on her ears and was momentarily confused how could she listen to a walkman in the middle of a club? — before he understood. He caught his breath, watching her bob her head, moving to a different rhythm from the rest of the dancers. He knew what she was listening to, he knew whose music it was.
In one hand she held a case full of records, in the other a squat box, some piece of electronics, trailing wires. He could not see what it was. Natasha tapped the DJ on the shoulder. He turned and touched fists with her, shouting animatedly into her ears. As he spoke she busied herself plugging the box into the sound system, nodding occasionally, whether in answer or in response to the music in her ears Saul could not tell.
The DJ removed his huge earphones and placed them over Natasha’s ears, hesitating for her to remove her small walkman earpieces. When she did not, he shrugged and placed the larger ones over the top of them and laughed. He disappeared into the door from which Natasha had emerged.
Natasha rifled through the records she had brought, pulled something out, twirled it elegantly and blew dust from it. She placed it on the turntable and hunched over, spinning it, smoothing it back with her fingers, listening through the tune on her walkman, mixing the beats, until she stood straight, with her fingers poised, and let a burst of piano spill over from the twelve-inch she had selected into the tune now coming to an end.
It was impossible to tell where one started and the other ended, the mixing was seamless. She pulled the record back, let it forward again a little, pulled it back, scratching playfully like an old school rapper, finally releasing her hand and switching off the first tune in a smooth movement, unleashing the new bassline.
She stood back without a trace of a smile on her lips.
Saul knew that he had to get down to her, had to take the phones from her head and make her understand the danger she was in. But this must be exactly what the Piper had in mind for him. The cheese in his trap.
The door opened again and two more figures appeared. The first was Fabian. Saul was appalled, nearly leapt to his feet. Fabian was even more emaciated and exhausted-looking than Natasha. His finery could not disguise that. He was limping. Like Natasha, he wore walkman headphones. It was that beat, the tune that only he could hear, that propelled Fabian forward.
Behind him was the Piper.
As he entered the room he stopped, breathed in deeply, gave a huge smile. He spread his arms wide as if he would embrace all the dancers below him.
Fabian stayed very close to him.
Saul looked up at Anansi. He was oscillating on his rope, his sudden tension communicated violently through his body.
Rush him?
Should we rush him? thought Saul frantically.
What is to be done?
Anansi and Saul were paralysed, caught in the gaze of a snake. And the Piper could not even see them.
Natasha turned and saw her two companions. She held out her hand and the Piper pulled something out of his pocket, tossed it across the stage to her. As it curved through the air it was transfixed for a moment in a beam of white light. It seemed to freeze, letting Saul examine it at his leisure. It glinted, a small plastic case, like a cassette but smaller, squarer…
A DAT.
A Digital Audio Tape. Natasha used them to record her tracks.
He screamed and leapt to his feet as Natasha’s hand closed around the tape.
The cavernous space was full of sound, there was no room for his paltry screech. He could not even hear it himself in the cacophony of beats and basslines. The dancers danced on, unperturbed, Natasha turned towards the decks, Fabian continued his shambling little rotations… but the Piper turned his head sharply at the imperceptible sound, stared up, through the cat’s cradle of light beams, past the too-cool bodies on the lower walkway, up into the shadow of the roof, gazing directly into Saul’s eyes.
The Piper gave a jaunty wave, and grinned. He was burning with triumphalism.
Saul propelled himself along the gantry while the Piper laughed on the stage. The dancers were oblivious. The beats seemed to slow down, everything was slow, Saul could see the mass of bodies below him sink and rise ponderously.
He pounded along the iron towards the corner where Anansi hung, paralysed. He stared through the floor at Natasha walking slowly towards the DAT player she had plugged in, reaching out with the hand holding the tape. Saul looked up as he drew near Anansi, who swung from side to side, around and around, a useless pendulum.
Saul had not stopped shouting. He was ululating appallingly as he ran. Anansi looked up at him. As Natasha slipped the tape into the deck and crooked one of the headphones against her shoulder, Saul grabbed the rail with his left hand and vaulted up high, moving so slowly he could stare at the faces below him, all the individuals that made up the bouncing mass. He brought his feet down together on the railing, bent down and leapt out, sending himself through the air, flying above the dancers like a superhero.
Anansi’s eyes widened as Saul surged towards him, his arms flailing, legs tucked up in front of him like a long-jumper. Saul spread his arms and legs wide, and crashed into Anansi forty feet above the stage.
He clutched at Anansi, hugged himself to him. He felt himself lurching crazily back and forth through the air, heard Anansi yelling something at him. The rope holding the two bodies was vibrating, dangerously taut. Saul was screaming into Anansi’s ears.
‘Down!’ he screamed. ‘Go down now!’
Saul felt himself drop and his stomach lurched. His descent smoothened out as Anansi manipulated the fibres in his hand. Smoother than any abseiler, the spider-man and his cargo sank swiftly towards the stage.
As they plummeted, Saul and Anansi spun around their centre of gravity, and the room whirled around them. Saul caught glimpse after glimpse of the dancers, frozen, gazing at the men dropping out of the air. Some looked aghast or confused, but most were laughing, enrapt at this new entertainment.
‘Run! Get the fuck out!’ screamed Saul, but the Jungle was remorseless, and no one heard him except Anansi.
Saul looked down, eight feet from the stage, relaxed his grip and dropped from Anansi like a bomb.
He was rigid, his quarry dead in his line of flight. Even over the Drum and Bass beats, Saul thought he heard a collective gasp. His face set as he fell, his legs straightened, but the Piper had been watching and he danced nimbly to one side, away from Saul’s punishing boots, leaving Saul to slam into the wooden stage.
He staggered but remained on his feet. The decks were so well supported that the record playing did not even skip at his arrival. Saul looked on in horror as Natasha’s hand tightened on the DAT player’s volume control, her face furrowed over the headphones as she prepared to mix from the record to the tape, waiting for the right moment in the beat.
Saul leapt towards her, prepared to throw her away from the decks, to hurt her if need be, rage and fear filling him, but as he neared her something slammed into him from behind and he went sprawling, flying off to the side of the stage. Natasha did not even look round.
Saul rolled on the floor, twisted, and pulled himself back up.
Fabian was bearing down on him.