‘Don’t they give you a place to live?’
‘Oh. I suppose they would. Whoever they are these days. I wouldn’t be knowing, would I?’
She’s crazy, Milena thought, addled with age. No one could help her.
Lucy was bored, and so she became incensed on Milena’s behalf. ‘Oooh, that Rolfa. Honestly, you’d wait all week for a slup out of her. Here.’ The old creature shoved a mug of beer towards Milena. ‘Go on, have a lick on me.’
Milena gave her head a little shake. ‘Oh no,’ she said. The mug had lipstick all around it.
‘Go on, love, I don’t mind,’ said Lucy. She patted the top of Milena’s clenched fist. Milena thought she was going to be sick. She began to wonder if she could make the door in time.
Then very suddenly, Rolfa was looming over them, streaming beer, lowering the mugs onto the table in front of Milena. Lucy laughed and held out her arms.
‘I wanted tea,’ said Milena.
‘Mwom mwom mwom,’ said Lucy, making motions with her mouth, wanting to be kissed. She looked like a goldfish. Rolfa leaned over and hugged her, and sat next to old Tone, who meowed like a cat. Rolfa barked like a dog, and put him in a headlock under her arm. The old man made gleeful squeaking noises and stamped his foot in merriment. The beer smelled of other people’s kidneys.
The leaking balloon leaned forward. ‘Ghoul,’ he said. ‘Ear. Whuh yer wan, ay? Ay?’
I want, thought Milena, to go home.
The old orange head slapped the table and made Milena jump. ‘Listen. Listen,’ she demanded. ‘Rolfa. Time for a song.’ There was a soft groan of assent.
‘It’s your turn,’ said Rolfa. ‘I believe you owe me a pint as well.’
‘Oh all right then,’ said Lucy. ‘But I warn you, you’ll get the full whack.’
Then she began to climb onto the table. Milena couldn’t think at first what she was trying to do. The old woman simply bent over the table top and worked her legs back and forth, her old crooked hands trying to hold. She finally succeeded in getting one knee onto the table and then clung to it desperately, as if to the wreckage of a ship.
‘Give her a hand!’ roared Old Tone, suddenly furious. Milena shrank back from his voice, shrank back from touching the old woman. Rolfa pushed the old woman’s skinny behind.
‘Whoo-hooo! Ooops!’ cried Lucy. Old Tone helped her to her feet. As she stood, Milena realized that she had smelly knees. How, wondered Milena, do you get smelly knees?
Someone passed Rolfa a squeeze box. A few testing notes announced that a song would begin, and the pub fell quiet, and the skinny purple men turned in anticipation.
An old, worn, squeaky melody began, a homely tune, and the men chuckled in recognition. The old woman gave them a wink and a toothless cackle and began to raise her skirts teasingly over slightly scaly thighs. Oh don’t, winced Milena. Then Lucy began to sing, in a wheedling, bird-like voice.
’It’s a Dog of a Song,’ she began, her voice straining.
‘Just a Dog of a Song
Ambling gently along’
She mimed an amble with her knees. Her fingers, all lumps and shiny patches, tried to trace sprightly patterns through the air. Her old wrinkled face pursed its lips and opened its eyes wide in a caricature of youthful naughtiness.
‘With no ill feelings, no ill will.
Just a Dog of a Song — the voice rose and quavered.
‘But it doesn’t know how to end
And it’s so hard
When you lose a friend — for just a note the voice held the clear tone it must once have had.
‘Just a Dog of a Song
But…’
Her head did a funny sideways jump, as if something mechanical had caught in her neck.
’We all sing along. But…’
Jump.
‘We all sing along. But…’
She did it over and over like a wind-up doll gone wrong. The rest of the song consisted of only that for over three minutes. The men joined in. Part of the fun was trying to make her stop. The men howled like coyotes, they shouted at her, they pounded tables with their mugs. Did they like it? Why were they smiling?
Finally Lucy stopped, and Rolfa took her hand and held it up, and there were derisive cheers. ‘No more. No more.’
‘Where’s my pint? Where’s my pint?’ Lucy challenged and pretended to make a fist.
Rolfa stood back and lifted up her hands and clapped lightly. But somehow, in her mouth, by sucking air through spittle, Rolfa was able to reproduce, exactly, the sound of massed applause. It rose and fell in waves. Milena could almost hear the cheering.
Later, walking back, Milena suddenly understood what the song meant.
Lucy had been imitating a broken record played on a wind-up gramophone. It must have been a shock when the tinny horns replaced the smoothly sliding tapes.
‘They were alive before the Blackout,’ Milena said.
‘Yup,’ said Rolfa.
They were the incandescent people of the electronic age. That was what had become of them. They had seen cities spangled with light, they had laughed in unison, millions all at once watching the same entertainments all together in an electronic net. They had had to learn how to sing songs and play squeeze boxes during the Blackout and they were now — how old? At least 120, maybe 140, years old.
But it doesn’t know how to end, and it’s so hard when you lose a friend…’
‘They were singing about themselves,’ Milena murmured.
‘Yup,’ said Rolfa, her back towards her. Milena noticed that she was abrupt and walking ahead of her.
‘We’ll go again,’ said Milena, to make amends.
‘If they’ll have you,’ said Rolfa. ‘Tuh!’ The chuckle, her chuckle that always died and became a shudder. ‘You looked most of the time like you’d swallowed your bloody parasol.’
That’s when Milena remembered that she’d left it behind.
‘Yup,’ she said, looking away from the river. She had begun, without realising it, to imitate Rolfa.
CHAPTER THREE
Love Sickness
(Holding a Ghost)
Love’s Labour’s Lost had grown so listless that the director had actually called for a rehearsal that afternoon. Actors did not normally need to rehearse; the viruses told them what to do.
The practice rooms were normally reserved for musicians, and were too small for a full cast. Summer sun streamed in through the windows. It was hot and airless.
‘Me, an’t shall please you,’ said Milena in her own fiercely exact voice. ‘I am Anthony Dull.’
‘No, no, no!’ wailed the director. His only job was to recreate the great production that the viruses remembered. ‘Milena, you know how that line is supposed to sound.’
‘Yes, thought Milena, flat, stupid, dull. She had no interest in it. She felt restless and worried and she did not know why. She did know that she wanted to talk to Rolfa, as if there were some unfinished business between them.
So in the late summer evening, still dressed as Constable Dull, she went to Rolfa’s chamber. A new aisle had been cleared through the racks. It was easier for her to find her way. As Milena walked through the archways of brick, she heard Rolfa begin to sing, alone in the dark.
She’ll stop in a moment, thought Milena. Rolfa didn’t. The song rose and fell wordlessly. It was embarrassing. How could she go up to Rolfa and say, hello, do you always sing to yourself in the dark?