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 e
is in his own private cinema again.
The
environment is plush, enveloping. He
is directing the film, is its artistic director and cameraman, determining
the look, sound and feel of each sequence.
He plays each part, too; he can take on the appearance of other
characters so effectively that he not only looks and sounds like them, he inhabits
them.
She
appears. She is standing in a doorway,
holding her handbag, a coat over her left arm, as in a family
photograph. Whatever she is wearing is
a blur, but the material is in keeping with her taste, swirls of orange and
maroon, purple and blue. It is a dress
perhaps, with puff sleeves. He can see
the circular vaccination mark, paler than her skin tone, on her left upper
arm. The earrings are familiar, large
clip-on white dots. She is smiling,
turning her head from side to side slowly in that way he knows so well. She is laughing now, her left eyelid
drooping a little. He can smell the
lily of the valley worn for special occasions.
Her
words are indistinct. It is not
necessary to hear precisely what she is saying, the sound and reverberation
of her voice are what matters, the familiar music of it.
From
behind the camera, his own voice speaks, "This is really difficult to
say. I don't think you realise, but
you're…" He pauses. "You're dead."
She
stops talking, smiling and laughing.
She frowns, then looks confused.
She starts to cry.
"I
don't want to be dead," she says.
Then
he can see her body inside her coffin, maggots wriggling in her eye sockets,
worms sliding through her hair.
Next,
as he emerges from the cinema, piano music is playing. Not Chopin; no, it has more of a lilt. He is trying to throw a rope around the
name of the composer, but it slips and he loosens his grip. As he shifts his weight, he manages to
recall the name of the tune, 'Solace'.
He can feel the keys under his fingers. He grinds his teeth, trying to catch the
elusive melody, until he gives up, left only with a nameless quality, a
swirl, a tone of voice.
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