Bombenbrandschrumpfleichen.
Just like the people of Hamburg. Carl, you poor, sad, cocky, two-left-footed bastard. You were the handsomest, the most charming; you were the lady killer. But come waltz, tango or jitterbug, goddammit, I was the best dancer. I was the best dancer!
‘I was the best dancer! I was the best dancer!’
One, two, three, and blow that bugle, Taffy! Let’s wake the buggers up. ‘Bugle Call Rag’ and Jesus Christ, will you look at him, the old bastard’s on his feet. Taffy flashes me a big grin and we get in the groove. I can feel Geoff’s eyes boring into the back of my head. Fuck him. Things are jumping now. Taffy and I are trading licks like we haven’t done in years. Trumpet and sax. Dizzy and Bird. Miles and Trane. Look at the guy go, he’s out of his chair and jumping up and down, yelling at the top of his lungs, baggy pants slipping down his hips.
‘I was the best dancer! I was the best dancer!’
Sure you were, buddy!
All of a sudden he seems to reach some sort of inner peak or crescendo as my sax and Taffy’s trumpet join in some of the weirdest harmonies we’ve ever found. He’s on tiptoe, stretching his arms as high as he can, reaching for the ceiling, or for heaven.
Then his whole body starts shaking. Taffy trails off to take a break and I blow harder, urging the old guy higher, but he’s out of synch with us now. Whatever he’s into, eyes closed, head tilted towards the ceiling, it’s nothing to do with our music. His pants are down around his ankles, his shrivelled scrotum and shrunken penis there for all to see. I stop the solo and turn to catch Geoff’s dagger gaze. I grin at him and shrug; he leads us back to the opening riff in a few spare, tight-assed chords.
The old man stiffens, then drops to the floor, spent. One by one, we let the music dribble away from us. Then there’s the strangest sensation. The room seems to draw in on him, as if all its energy focuses on that single inert figure. Everything feels tight, like a corked bottle about to blow. The room fills with pressure, and it’s hard against my eardrums, that deaf and fuzzy feeling before your ears pop on an airplane, everything silent and in slow motion.
Then it pops, the air hisses out, and he’s just someone lying on the floor.
‘Jesus,’ whispers the man beside him. ‘When I go, I want to go just like that.’
Then the smooth, practised staff breeze in like a team of office cleaners, or scene changers between the acts of a play, and start to tidy up the mess in a silence as heavy as prayer. Someone in white checks the old man’s pulse and takes out a stethoscope. The other inmates, dazed, mumbling and drooling, are all wheeled back to their rooms. And it’s getting to look like nothing ever happened.
Before they’re done, Emily starts leading us back to the dressing room. ‘I think it would probably be best all around if you left now, don’t you think?’ she says. ‘Then we can get everyone calmed down. They take it hard, some of them, when one of them passes on, you know. See their own future, I suppose, poor things. Don’t worry, you’ll be paid your normal rate, of course. It wasn’t your fault, after all, was it?’
I nod dumbly, walking beside her. She’s right, of course. It wasn’t our fault, no reason why we shouldn’t get paid. But even so. See their own future, I suppose. Somehow that echoes, gets to me so much that I forget to ask for her phone number. And I remember it afterwards in the van. But this time Benny passes around the Jim Beam and Kit rolls another spliff and soon it’s just another memory of just another shitty gig, after all, just another slice of turd on the nursing-home circuit.
CARRION
Isn’t it strange the way two strangers might strike up a casual acquaintance due simply to a quirk of fate? And isn’t it even stranger how that innocent meeting might so completely alter the life of one of them? That was exactly what happened when Edward Grainger and I met in a pub one wet September lunchtime, only weeks before his tragic loss.
I work in a bank in the City. It’s a dull job, enlivened only by the occasional surge of adrenalin when the pound takes yet another plunge on the foreign exchange markets, and most lunchtimes I like to get out of the office and take refuge in the Mason’s Arms.
As a rule, I will drink half a pint of Guinness with a slice of quiche or a cheese roll, say, and perhaps, once in a while, treat myself to a steak and kidney pie. As I eat, I work at the Times crossword, which I never seem able to finish before my glass is empty, and after my meal I enjoy a cigarette. I know the vile things are bad for me, but I can’t quite seem to give them up. Besides, how bad can one cigarette a day be? And only five days a week, at that.
Given its location in the City, the Mason’s Arms is generally busy, noisy and smoky by half past twelve on a weekday, and that suits me just fine. Lost in the crowd, buffeted by conversation and laughter that require no response on my part, I can concentrate on my crossword or allow my mind to drift in directions that the constant application of little grey cells to columns of figures precludes.
That particular lunchtime I found myself leaving the office a few minutes later than usual due to an important telephone conversation with an overseas client. The short walk also took longer because I had to struggle against the wind and rain with my rather flimsy umbrella. When I got to the Arms, as I had taken to calling it, I found my usual little corner table already taken by a stranger in a pinstripe suit. I could hardly tell him to sod off, so I carried my drink over and sat opposite him.
As he read his Times, I studied his features closely. I would guess his age at about forty-five – mostly because of the wrinkles around his eyes and the grey hair around his temples and ears – but having said that, I would have to admit that the overall effect of his face was one of youthfulness. He had bright blue eyes and a healthy, ruddy complexion, and he showed no sign of that dark, shadowy stubble that makes so many men look downright repulsive, not to mention sinister.
After I had finished my ham roll, I lit my cigarette and wrestled with eight down, letting the ebb and flow of conversation drift over me until a voice seemed to single itself out from the crowd and speak directly to me.
Startled, I noticed the man opposite looking at me in a way that suggested he had just spoken.
‘Pardon?’ I said. ‘I was miles away.’