And in the tiny silence that follows I let dissolve all my ghosts, calling up only Girlforce 7 with my last remaining strength. The music clicks back into action, time becomes ordinary, and I'm gone, vanished. The snake hisses around, searching. But I'm small, I'm petite. Angels in the dub. I'm the little girl who sings poison in your ear, when no-one is looking…
Now they're dragging me, flesh naked, out of the DJ machine, what's happening? All is dark, inside and out, with a crowd screaming somewhere far away and my challenger lying on the booth-floor, smoke rising from his puny, twitching body. In this world, he can't be no more than ten years old. I'm shaking as well, so bad I can't even feel the pain as somebody hits me. But Margo's there, she's always there when needed, demanding the money, the prizes. Somebody's offering me a job; Margo tells them to go stuff themselves, and that's good, because with the new thing inside me now, alive to my every need…
Close all mechanisms. I am Skinvader Deathbeat, latest member of all-time best ever PERFUME SWORD music team. With my chameleon melody weapons I am ready for all warfare. Play your next game with me. We turn Moonchester into DJ Paradise. Death to all challengers!
We don't bother staying overnight, just grab the bags, check out, start driving. Margo can't stop smiling, the mouth fixed into joy as her hands move slowly on the steering wheel. We're out of the city now, following the twin snakes of light back to the hills. All is quiet outside, the night passing by in a hush of rain.
We don't talk much. Each of us caught in separate feelings, lost in the wonder. Until, as we reach the crest of the hill, Margo stops the car. 'I can't drive any more, Perfume,' she says, her voice as gentle as the moon that hangs above. 'You'll have to get us home.'
Right. She gets out of the car, ghost-frail, walks a small distance into the darkness. I follow her there, to take a hold of her dissolving hand. We kiss, under the moonlight, and I let her spirit seep back inside of me. It's a tear-stained cadence. Then I'm alone.
I walk back to the car, carrying some beauties.
DUB KARAOKE
PART TWO
INFECTION'S COURTSHIP
BUG COMPASS
Zzzzs! Like the taste of the sun on the tongue of the young, the bright lick of fire that sparked from the belly of the candle bug. The brief, short flame that was made from its underside duct. Zzzzs! A warning sign, a mating call, a weapon also, and a fine thing for a couple of boys to catch, summer golden as they were, and light-headed with endless holiday. All that summer, as I recall, we would stalk the crackle of ignition and the tiny explosions that haunted the shoulder-high grass.
Zzzzs!
'Here! Quick! Here!'
'No. Gone. Missed it.'
'Damn!'
And drifting through the long days when the season hangs forever on the tips of the smoke grass, when school is a thousand hot miles away. Three weeks, four days, fourteen hours away, a time so carefully counted even as it disappeared in the heat haze. We said it was hotter than a hummingbird's armpit, and we laughed; but hottest of all was the fire that sparked from the candle bugs' arseholes. With two kids of seven and ten, imagine, running crazy with net and jam jar, to chase the plumes of smoke that drifted gentle and sunwise.
Finding was easy, reading the smoke trails, the spark and flash, and the heady scent. Gathering was hard, landing the bugs just before they cracked their wing-cases open, let spring the folded treasure, took flight.
Zzzzs!
'Here! Here!'
'No. Here!'
'Got it! Yes!'
Eliot was a whole three years older than me, and a wounded veteran of these fields; his hands already scarred with countless burn marks. His jar was forever filled with fire, mine only with a spark or two, and I didn't mind one bit, happy to play tag to his shirt-tail. We both lived on the nearby Shakespeare Estate, and to there we would descend, two grass-stained warriors, carrying our booty. I don't know, I guess this all sounds like kid's stuff, but I couldn't help feeling it would all soon be over. Eliot was already talking about girls as though they were something special. There was one girl, this Valerie he was always going on about. I guess I was clinging on to something, keeping him interested in the bug hunts.
Eliot's uncle would buy the candle bugs off us, so many pennies a bug, depending on the exchange rate. Uncle Slippy, Eliot called him, I don't know why; just that he never seemed to be where he was, I suppose.
'OK, how many you got today?' he would ask.
'Fifty-seven,' Eliot would answer.
'Five,' would be my reply.
'You lose, Scribble,' says Eliot. 'You'd better buck up.'
'Leave him be,' says Slippy.
It was Eliot that started calling me Scribble, ever since I'd shown him some of my nonsensical rhymes. Bad move, I know, except that I wanted him to realize I was good for something at least. It was one of those things, I liked it when he laughed at me. And it was strange that he made up nicknames for everybody, everybody except himself. It was a way of staying in control, I suppose, but that's only me looking back.
'Here's your money, boys,' Uncle Slippy would then say.
'Cheers, Uncle.'
'You both go on now, get out of here.'
We never wanted to go, of course. Uncle Slippy lived alone, in this becurtained old house at the end of our street. He seemed to live in just one of the rooms, a bedroom. It was full of assorted wonders, most of which had no explanation or purpose, I'm sure of it. He was a collector: of broken alarm clocks, and of exotic birds' feathers, but mainly of insects. An entomologist, he called himself. It was the best word I'd ever heard. Some of his prize specimens were mounted in glass cases on the walls, vividly painted monsters from all over the world. Others, the live ones, he kept in various murky fish tanks. I would press my face against them, better to see the mysteries involved. The dark flutterings, the sudden movement of what you thought was a leaf, say, or a flower head. Sometimes he'd tell us stories of the insects, and their strange powers, and how they were quite the most beautiful and intelligent species on the planet.