7.b, Time to Meet My Maker
Following a manic flight across the twilit rooftops, Billy and I descended to terra firma. No heroics nor tests this time; this was getting down to the business that had been in the making for who knew how many years. Nor were there any mortals we would potentially petrify to greet our landing. We dropped beside a quayside factory in virtual silence, just the fluttering of our clothes protesting against gravity announcing our arrival. In the failing light, the total lack of activity put you in the mindset that you may find the Marie Celeste moored anywhere alongside the quay.
This was unlike anywhere Billy had brought me to yet. The atmosphere was different; something here was making me edgy. We had landed like spies on a behind-enemy-lines mission in a foreign land. It did feel alien, the whole place. From its silence to the air of expectation, it was like nothing—or nowhere—I'd experienced before. But, yes; the frosty air was crackling, as if the microscopic flakes of ice in the atmosphere were carrying a charge pregnant with shock!
In even more reverent silence, we turned right off the quayside and headed into what looked like a little town. Little, and old, very much Victorian in its outlay and buildings. Billy took us along the first lane off the square, which was monopolised by an ugly cenotaph that seemed to have been built around the town clock. The clock looked old, ancient almost; it managed to maintain a certain grandeur, albeit with a hint of embarrassment that some fool after one of the World Wars had thought it a good idea to honour the town's dead with a block of unsightly concrete.
The lane itself was no more comforting. Tall 3- and 4-storey buildings craned high above, like skeletons forming a guard of honour for any unfortunate passing pedestrian. Thankfully, the cobbles didn't extend very far and we were out in the open again in less than a minute. The buildings here were more tasteful, the highest 2-storey and spread out to welcome and ingratiate the countryside, before exiting in what looked like a main road that could lead anywhere.
Billy tugged my shirt collar so that I was looking roughly back in the direction of whatever sea abutted this part of the world. I wouldn't honestly have been able to swear that we were even still in England, had it not been for the cenotaph and crumbling architecture. Billy leading, keeping me at his back, we approached the small lane leading to the foot of an ancient stone footbridge, which spanned one of the harbour's small tributaries. At its crest, a small gang of creatures, all adorned in black, were paying court to a slip of a girl.
The scene reminded me—and I don't know why—of one of the Gospels. 'The Finding', when Mary and Joseph inadvertently left a 12-year old Jesus in the synagogue, whereupon he debated with the elders for three days after Passover. Was this girl, whose word the crowd followed to the letter, also 'in [her] Father's house?" On some level, I knew this to be true.
The girl sat back on the apex of the bridge's thick-but-decrepit wall, hands and arms splayed either side of her in a picture of effortless relaxation. From here, her face was in shadow, as was the host of followers crowding around her. A short skirt displayed a tasteful length of her thick-stockinged, crossed legs, while a thick cape covered her shoulders, upper arms and torso. To my eyes, a pleasure to behold.
Many of her attendants looked much older than she, older than me. Had I misread the situation; perhaps she was in trouble? My mind was racing in a thousand different directions at once. Was this why Billy and I were here, to save her?
As we drew closer, still clinging to the shadows, it became apparent that this seemingly fragile figure was a young lady who'd not quite blossomed into full womanhood. If you accepted that she was likewise a vampire—the longer I was in the place, the more convinced was I that this was not a place for mortals—then she was unlikely to ever physically reach full bloom. How treacherous!
Even so, she was a being of pure beauty, and not just because of her eye-searing looks, which were becoming more apparent the closer we got to, what I assumed was, our quarry. I also tried to bend my vision to get a better view, but it—for whatever reason—didn't work on her.
Something in the easy way she held herself belied her youthful appearance. Whether she was currently in danger or in charge of her situation, and I was now leaning towards the latter, she commanded your full attention.
In the dim light, cast by a myriad random old-fashioned gas street lamps, any sense of true colour was lost against the night. It was only when we got to the very foot of the bridge that I saw enough to suspect that this woman—exuding influence that orbited her like some mystical, tangible aura—had been Asian when she was alive. I say 'had been' only in the sense that I'd stopped thinking of myself as half-Irish the moment I'd been turned vampire. I was 'vampire', end of story. What was past was past; only the future had meaning now, or so I thought.
At last, Billy stepped out of the shadows and, boldly, approached her court. I jogged to keep up and, as we approached, the small gathering parted; to a man, they backed away and bowed down on one knee, supplicating before him.
Now, I was confused. Even moreso when Billy moved through the pathway they'd created and assumed the same position himself before the young lady on the bridge wall. It was odd seeing this powerful brute lay himself almost prostrate, but in the setting, somehow fitting. It conveyed fierce loyalty that was almost fearful to behold.
When I eventually stopped my gaze from flitting between Billy and the lady whom he was apparently worshipping as if I was enthralled by some nighttime tennis match, I wondered if I should do the same. But this girl-on-the-wall's hazel eyes shifted from Billy and locked onto me, holding me rapt; they bore a path through the whorling, frosty night air into (what passed for) my very soul.
Her gaze engaged mine, not meaning to let go. In the instant the connection was made, memories of my childhood began to flood my mind. The memories were mine, but…but, not mine. There was no power of suggestion at play, here, either. I could not possibly have conjured the passage playing out in my mind's eye as I was the object of these memories, the perspective from a viewpoint that wasn't mine.
This one memory was a football match from my schooldays. My (then) white-blonde hair was cut in the wedge style (or basin-cut, if you prefer). My whole scalp bounced like a jellyfish in full flight as I jogged back to my half after scoring a goal. In this replay, I stopped mid-jog to stare at the touchline, as if beckoned, and into whoever's eyes had captured these memories.
Caught on camera, the present me was looking directly into the eyes of the younger me, staring back through the host's eyes through time at this future me. Quite willingly, I sauntered to the touchline, towards the very eyes through which present me was viewing this replay.
Whoever it was who owned these eyes whispered unexpected—and now memory-worn and incomprehensible (but deep in my subconscious, memorable!)—encouraging, praising words as, against the blurred backdrop beyond my very young face, the two football teams took their positions ready for kick off.
In the now, in this alien place, this intrusion into my past had me petrified. Awe, fear, recognition and a whole load of pennies dropping somehow combined to catapult my mind beyond the reaches of all time and space. The message that the younger me conveyed back to the owner of these eyes in this memory had likewise become garbled over time, their peaks and troughs erased like a rough diamond left to the mercy of the sea for a thousand years.
Whatever short-but-pleasant passage passed between us had made us laugh, our hands touched ever-so lightly as I, chest puffed out like a rooster, turned and jogged back to take up my own position on the pitch.
But it wasn't the words that were important. I didn't need to hear what we said. It was the intent, so sincere, almost loving (as much as 10-year olds can fall in love), and so obviously not forgotten by the host that was important, both then and in this setting in the here and now.
Through her eyes I stared back into my own as they were then, bright blue, open to everything and anyone. The memory harked back to a time when I knew not what innocence meant, yet possessed it in abundance. And, at last, the memory came back to me whole, struggling to rise up through the masses of new memories that Billy had so recently given me.
It was Perveen. She was younger then. But the moment I remembered everything, I could see her in the girl who was now sat up straight on the bridge wall, forearms criss-crossed in her lap, waiting. The instant I made the connection, the leap, she closed down the transmission, the green fields disappearing in a kaleidoscope, swirling around until all that was left was my blue eyes in the centre of this ethereal screen, before they too disappeared, shrinking to nothing like the closing dot of a cathode-ray TV before the screen went blank entirely.
Off the crumbling wall she skipped, running past Billy and through the crowd of worshippers to take my hand. It was as if she had been sat there for years, but how could that be so? She had grown, and some, since that memory was made. But, it seemed, she had been brought over into this other world sooner than I.
How much sooner, I tried to guess. I was almost 30. I guess I'd never get to that milestone, now. Now, there was a thought. She and I were in the same class, infants and juniors; but we'd become separated later at senior school.
After that touchline exchange, we had become the closest of friends through the remainder of junior school and into the early years of senior school. But, after we had taken our 'options', what then? Fate took us in different directions and the trail of our history just truncated in my mind. That was, until our Prom night, my last (living) memory of her. We hadn't attended as a couple. She had simply become one of 300 or so peers who'd graduated that year who I'd not laid eyes on since.
And now, she was the Master? I could not conceive it. But low grumbling from the down-turned heads behind us, aghast that I should question such, confirmed that it was so. So, they could hear my thoughts, too? Was nothing private, here?
She smiled with her mouth, beamed with her eyes and her body shimmered with an ecstasy I didn't comprehend. Looking after me here was her duty, her chosen duty. I somehow knew that, now. But it was a task she would relish, and had waited more than a decade to undertake. She would take me under her wings, as I had seemingly done so for her all of those years ago at school.
Remembering that now cast a dark cloud over my psyche; how soon we pick up and drop friends when we're young. So much to see and learn at that age; everything is new. We bend like the proverbial green reed in the wind, following other kids who share a passion for our next fad, caring nought for those we leave behind. We do not once consider that their interest in that foresaken passion was because it was ours, and not the fad itself. What happened to all those people we leave in our wake, and not just in childhood, clutching to a memory like a drowning man clutches to a buoy in a restless sea?
Perveen's rough palm cut through my maudlin wallowing. It cupped my cheek as best it could—her hands were so delicate and tiny—and turned my face to look down into hers. In that instant, we were back in that touchline moment in childhood, the way our eyes had met then without a care. For an instant, I felt I would drown in the love that came swimming back up at me.
I broke the gaze, gasping. Her look was all tenderness and understanding, but demanding that I look again, all the same. I was powerless to do otherwise.
We strolled down the opposite side of the small hump-backed bridge whence Billy and I had approached, leaving the others behind. They began to stand now that their Lady had dismissed (or forgotten) the court. She was all mine. Or, rather, I was all hers, and she had another type of courting on her mind. What little I thought I had left to give, she could have willingly.
My induction with Billy was over. He had served both his queen and I well. But this was only the beginning. Perveen was about to show me how much more there was to give, even in this undead life, and in exactly what manner it should be imparted. And received. And, as it turned out, in ways that only a madman would ever conceive.
This was unlike anywhere Billy had brought me to yet. The atmosphere was different; something here was making me edgy. We had landed like spies on a behind-enemy-lines mission in a foreign land. It did feel alien, the whole place. From its silence to the air of expectation, it was like nothing—or nowhere—I'd experienced before. But, yes; the frosty air was crackling, as if the microscopic flakes of ice in the atmosphere were carrying a charge pregnant with shock!
In even more reverent silence, we turned right off the quayside and headed into what looked like a little town. Little, and old, very much Victorian in its outlay and buildings. Billy took us along the first lane off the square, which was monopolised by an ugly cenotaph that seemed to have been built around the town clock. The clock looked old, ancient almost; it managed to maintain a certain grandeur, albeit with a hint of embarrassment that some fool after one of the World Wars had thought it a good idea to honour the town's dead with a block of unsightly concrete.
The lane itself was no more comforting. Tall 3- and 4-storey buildings craned high above, like skeletons forming a guard of honour for any unfortunate passing pedestrian. Thankfully, the cobbles didn't extend very far and we were out in the open again in less than a minute. The buildings here were more tasteful, the highest 2-storey and spread out to welcome and ingratiate the countryside, before exiting in what looked like a main road that could lead anywhere.
Billy tugged my shirt collar so that I was looking roughly back in the direction of whatever sea abutted this part of the world. I wouldn't honestly have been able to swear that we were even still in England, had it not been for the cenotaph and crumbling architecture. Billy leading, keeping me at his back, we approached the small lane leading to the foot of an ancient stone footbridge, which spanned one of the harbour's small tributaries. At its crest, a small gang of creatures, all adorned in black, were paying court to a slip of a girl.
The scene reminded me—and I don't know why—of one of the Gospels. 'The Finding', when Mary and Joseph inadvertently left a 12-year old Jesus in the synagogue, whereupon he debated with the elders for three days after Passover. Was this girl, whose word the crowd followed to the letter, also 'in [her] Father's house?" On some level, I knew this to be true.
The girl sat back on the apex of the bridge's thick-but-decrepit wall, hands and arms splayed either side of her in a picture of effortless relaxation. From here, her face was in shadow, as was the host of followers crowding around her. A short skirt displayed a tasteful length of her thick-stockinged, crossed legs, while a thick cape covered her shoulders, upper arms and torso. To my eyes, a pleasure to behold.
Many of her attendants looked much older than she, older than me. Had I misread the situation; perhaps she was in trouble? My mind was racing in a thousand different directions at once. Was this why Billy and I were here, to save her?
As we drew closer, still clinging to the shadows, it became apparent that this seemingly fragile figure was a young lady who'd not quite blossomed into full womanhood. If you accepted that she was likewise a vampire—the longer I was in the place, the more convinced was I that this was not a place for mortals—then she was unlikely to ever physically reach full bloom. How treacherous!
Even so, she was a being of pure beauty, and not just because of her eye-searing looks, which were becoming more apparent the closer we got to, what I assumed was, our quarry. I also tried to bend my vision to get a better view, but it—for whatever reason—didn't work on her.
Something in the easy way she held herself belied her youthful appearance. Whether she was currently in danger or in charge of her situation, and I was now leaning towards the latter, she commanded your full attention.
In the dim light, cast by a myriad random old-fashioned gas street lamps, any sense of true colour was lost against the night. It was only when we got to the very foot of the bridge that I saw enough to suspect that this woman—exuding influence that orbited her like some mystical, tangible aura—had been Asian when she was alive. I say 'had been' only in the sense that I'd stopped thinking of myself as half-Irish the moment I'd been turned vampire. I was 'vampire', end of story. What was past was past; only the future had meaning now, or so I thought.
At last, Billy stepped out of the shadows and, boldly, approached her court. I jogged to keep up and, as we approached, the small gathering parted; to a man, they backed away and bowed down on one knee, supplicating before him.
Now, I was confused. Even moreso when Billy moved through the pathway they'd created and assumed the same position himself before the young lady on the bridge wall. It was odd seeing this powerful brute lay himself almost prostrate, but in the setting, somehow fitting. It conveyed fierce loyalty that was almost fearful to behold.
When I eventually stopped my gaze from flitting between Billy and the lady whom he was apparently worshipping as if I was enthralled by some nighttime tennis match, I wondered if I should do the same. But this girl-on-the-wall's hazel eyes shifted from Billy and locked onto me, holding me rapt; they bore a path through the whorling, frosty night air into (what passed for) my very soul.
Her gaze engaged mine, not meaning to let go. In the instant the connection was made, memories of my childhood began to flood my mind. The memories were mine, but…but, not mine. There was no power of suggestion at play, here, either. I could not possibly have conjured the passage playing out in my mind's eye as I was the object of these memories, the perspective from a viewpoint that wasn't mine.
This one memory was a football match from my schooldays. My (then) white-blonde hair was cut in the wedge style (or basin-cut, if you prefer). My whole scalp bounced like a jellyfish in full flight as I jogged back to my half after scoring a goal. In this replay, I stopped mid-jog to stare at the touchline, as if beckoned, and into whoever's eyes had captured these memories.
Caught on camera, the present me was looking directly into the eyes of the younger me, staring back through the host's eyes through time at this future me. Quite willingly, I sauntered to the touchline, towards the very eyes through which present me was viewing this replay.
Whoever it was who owned these eyes whispered unexpected—and now memory-worn and incomprehensible (but deep in my subconscious, memorable!)—encouraging, praising words as, against the blurred backdrop beyond my very young face, the two football teams took their positions ready for kick off.
In the now, in this alien place, this intrusion into my past had me petrified. Awe, fear, recognition and a whole load of pennies dropping somehow combined to catapult my mind beyond the reaches of all time and space. The message that the younger me conveyed back to the owner of these eyes in this memory had likewise become garbled over time, their peaks and troughs erased like a rough diamond left to the mercy of the sea for a thousand years.
Whatever short-but-pleasant passage passed between us had made us laugh, our hands touched ever-so lightly as I, chest puffed out like a rooster, turned and jogged back to take up my own position on the pitch.
But it wasn't the words that were important. I didn't need to hear what we said. It was the intent, so sincere, almost loving (as much as 10-year olds can fall in love), and so obviously not forgotten by the host that was important, both then and in this setting in the here and now.
Through her eyes I stared back into my own as they were then, bright blue, open to everything and anyone. The memory harked back to a time when I knew not what innocence meant, yet possessed it in abundance. And, at last, the memory came back to me whole, struggling to rise up through the masses of new memories that Billy had so recently given me.
It was Perveen. She was younger then. But the moment I remembered everything, I could see her in the girl who was now sat up straight on the bridge wall, forearms criss-crossed in her lap, waiting. The instant I made the connection, the leap, she closed down the transmission, the green fields disappearing in a kaleidoscope, swirling around until all that was left was my blue eyes in the centre of this ethereal screen, before they too disappeared, shrinking to nothing like the closing dot of a cathode-ray TV before the screen went blank entirely.
Off the crumbling wall she skipped, running past Billy and through the crowd of worshippers to take my hand. It was as if she had been sat there for years, but how could that be so? She had grown, and some, since that memory was made. But, it seemed, she had been brought over into this other world sooner than I.
How much sooner, I tried to guess. I was almost 30. I guess I'd never get to that milestone, now. Now, there was a thought. She and I were in the same class, infants and juniors; but we'd become separated later at senior school.
After that touchline exchange, we had become the closest of friends through the remainder of junior school and into the early years of senior school. But, after we had taken our 'options', what then? Fate took us in different directions and the trail of our history just truncated in my mind. That was, until our Prom night, my last (living) memory of her. We hadn't attended as a couple. She had simply become one of 300 or so peers who'd graduated that year who I'd not laid eyes on since.
And now, she was the Master? I could not conceive it. But low grumbling from the down-turned heads behind us, aghast that I should question such, confirmed that it was so. So, they could hear my thoughts, too? Was nothing private, here?
She smiled with her mouth, beamed with her eyes and her body shimmered with an ecstasy I didn't comprehend. Looking after me here was her duty, her chosen duty. I somehow knew that, now. But it was a task she would relish, and had waited more than a decade to undertake. She would take me under her wings, as I had seemingly done so for her all of those years ago at school.
Remembering that now cast a dark cloud over my psyche; how soon we pick up and drop friends when we're young. So much to see and learn at that age; everything is new. We bend like the proverbial green reed in the wind, following other kids who share a passion for our next fad, caring nought for those we leave behind. We do not once consider that their interest in that foresaken passion was because it was ours, and not the fad itself. What happened to all those people we leave in our wake, and not just in childhood, clutching to a memory like a drowning man clutches to a buoy in a restless sea?
Perveen's rough palm cut through my maudlin wallowing. It cupped my cheek as best it could—her hands were so delicate and tiny—and turned my face to look down into hers. In that instant, we were back in that touchline moment in childhood, the way our eyes had met then without a care. For an instant, I felt I would drown in the love that came swimming back up at me.
I broke the gaze, gasping. Her look was all tenderness and understanding, but demanding that I look again, all the same. I was powerless to do otherwise.
We strolled down the opposite side of the small hump-backed bridge whence Billy and I had approached, leaving the others behind. They began to stand now that their Lady had dismissed (or forgotten) the court. She was all mine. Or, rather, I was all hers, and she had another type of courting on her mind. What little I thought I had left to give, she could have willingly.
My induction with Billy was over. He had served both his queen and I well. But this was only the beginning. Perveen was about to show me how much more there was to give, even in this undead life, and in exactly what manner it should be imparted. And received. And, as it turned out, in ways that only a madman would ever conceive.
« « Chapter 7a
Chapter 7b updated 06/05/20.
ReplyDeleteMuch of this is brand new, only touched upon in the 2012 version Chapter 7.