Tongueless Author
Part 1: Raven
In his mind, he’s seen a hundred different worlds, and through his eyes, watched a thousand roses bloom and die, and in his heart, felt a child’s leaving. In a thousand darkness’s, he has stood in a single shot of light, being both boy and man, and dreamt himself standing on the closer side of forever.
A journeying story man, stumbling over paragraphs, tripping through pages, hiding in plots, a lonely man in a castle writing by candlelight, waiting for a rocket to come by.
Tonight, he stands alone, remote from the world, looking out from the clifftop toward the gathering storm, and digs around in his coat pocket for a cigarette, pulling out a half-crumpled pack of Marlboro Lights, and taps the top of the packet on one palm, slipping out a damaged smoke which he shoots to the side of his mouth. The cigarette shakes between his lips as he flutters the lighter’s flame all around it.
Had she guessed? He wondered. If she had, even to the point she was only teasing, he felt his secret exposed. He inhaled deeply on the cigarette, taking a moment to study the now encroaching storm, allowing his senses to absorb the onset of the night and the natural building of wind before slowly exhaling. A gift they called it, knowing the weather a hundred years from now and having lived every summer that had followed every winter since man had departed the moon.
In all that time, the only thing that had remained the same was the sun’s setting, the pinks, and the golds. He drew on his cigarette one last time. It calmed him, and with eyes still closed, flicked the still glowing stub over the cliff into the ocean.
Never once, in all the years, had anyone improved upon their friendship once they doubted him. She had been the last one he’d wanted to find out. Not that it could have been a serious relationship, how could it? But down the centuries, he’d never met anyone quite like her.
When he opened his eyes again, the lights were out on the street. There was no sensing of a storm, only clear night skies, in one corner a sliver of moon, like a slit in the dark canopy revealing behind it the possibility of daylight. He slipped back into the shadow and waited under a lit window.
Jackie Sheridan worked nights at a bar in the London district of Soho. During the day, she prostituted herself to rich men for a decent income though she never enjoyed sex, had never been in love, a life blunted by a lack of feeling, but a lifestyle that allowed time to write, and in doing so hadn’t left her apartment for two days, working feverishly on a manuscript. Two days putting everything of herself onto the page but the only pieces that glowed were those she’d written while drunk. She read a page, flicked a page and read some more. It was crap.
She went to the fridge, pulled out a beer, lit a cigarette, and waited for her mood to break. She drank two more beers, smoked four cigarettes, but still, her feelings never returned.
Fuck it, she thought and headed out the door. It was past midnight.
Disrepute, on Kingly Court, was her favourite cocktail bar. It was crowded, good food, great music and full of salty, sweaty, sunshot men.
The figure hiding in the shadow left his cover.
“Jackie, baby, where have you been these last couple of days?”
“Hi, Max. I’d have to bind you to secrecy, not your strong point, is it? Is that bottle of beer for me?”
Max was in the advertisement agency business, overweight, terrible dresser, unmarried, and a regular client.
“True. Are you working, Jackie?” He asked, handing over the beer.
“Not tonight, Max. I’m not feeling it. Thursday, okay? Why not check in with Rosie, she’s working tonight.”
Max smiled, chinked his bottle on hers, “She hasn’t got your tight arse,” and turned away, disappearing into the melee of sweating bodies.
Jackie slid sideways between the backs of two women in backless cocktail dresses, forcing herself up to the bar, and rested her forearms.
“Sid, can I get a screwdriver?”
“Yeh, luv. Giv me a sec.”
She felt dull and let the noise of the bar wash over her as she checked her look in the mirror, not bad, she thought, looking younger than her twenty eight years. A minute later she was disturbed by the asking of a question.
“Don’t you find real unhappiness always arrives in winter?” The stranger said in casual conversation. It was a question so personal she felt quite alone in the crowd.
“Sorry?” Jackie said, looking bemusedly into the blue-steely eyes of a tall man.
“All the warmth has gone out of the earth, the trees are bare, and the horizon is blank,” he continued, as though a friend.
“Actually, I love winter. People move around with a purpose,” she said, struck by the man’s genial manner.
“Here’s your screwdriver, Jackie,” said Sid, placing the drink in front of her.” “Thanks, Sid.”
“That drink… it’s called a screwdriver?” The stranger asked.
Jackie thought the guy was being funny and ignored his silliness.
“You’re very tall. How tall are you?”
“Six-seven.”
“You’re not a regular here, that’s for sure. You can’t be missed.”
“This is my first visit in a couple of hundred years away. Is that the guy I ask for a drink?” The stranger asked, pointing at Sid.
“Sid is the barmen, I’d say he’s a good place to start, don’t you think?”
There was something about the guy’s humor that sounded funny, because of its sincerity.
“Sir, can I get one of these, please?”
“He wants a screwdriver, Sid.”
“Coming up,” Sid called back.
“It’s been quite a while since I had a drink,” the tall guy said.
“Yeh? Where you from?” Jackie enquired, without stressing any real interest. She wasn’t expecting an answer as most men, seeking her company, were happy keeping such information to themselves.
“Scotland,” he answered.
Sid returned with the drink and set it down on the bar in front of the tall man, “One screwdriver. You want to keep a tab?”
“Tab?” The tall guy said.
“Or you want to pay cash?” Sid asked.
“Put it on my tab, Sid,” Jackie intervened.
“You sure, Jackie?”
“Sure.”
Sid flipped a towel over his shoulder and moved back down the bar.
“Do you mind if I ask what just happened?” The tall guy said.
“I bought your drink…what’s your name?”
“Raven.”
“Did your mother not like you? Who names a kid, Raven?”
“My mother.”
“I’m sorry, that was cruel. It’s unusual, I’d say, that’s all I meant.”
“What is a tab?”
“You’re kidding me, right.”
“I’m not…why did you say…my tab?”
“Forget about it,” she said, “Scotland, you say, land of whisky, pubs, and tartans, and you’re asking me what a tab is? That’s pretty funny.”
“Well, it’s been a couple of centuries since I went home.”
“You missed the last bus, I presume?”
“Bus?”
“Okay, you were funny for a moment. Enjoy your drink.” Jackie turned slightly away from his gaze but he wasn’t finished with questions.
“You bought me a drink, that’s friendly thing to do, I believe. Maybe I can ask what you do in the world?”
“I’m a working prostitute in Soho during the day and a barmaid at night,” she said, matter-of-factly, either to get him to leave her alone or book a time to have sex.
“My mother was a prostitute,” he said. Jackie almost choked. That was a line she’d never heard. “And when she wasn’t working,” he continued, “she wrote manuscripts on long winter evenings, the world muffled by snow, amid the silence, scratching down her dreams in places where men drank beer, sang bawdy songs, and ate meat pies. She said, real unhappiness always comes in winter.”
Jackie felt curiously uneasy. This stranger, someone she had no recall of ever meeting, talking of a mother being a prostitute, and mentioning the writing of manuscripts.
Typically, she would sense a danger that cannot be explained and should be steered clear of, but Jackie didn’t feel afraid, she didn’t feel anything but interest. No, she felt creative.
Raven talked long into the early hours, never touching his drink. His eyes flamed, his hands brushed the air, creating warm winds. He talked of ancient races, Norsemen, about death and how it makes us all repent, about exhausting work, saying goodbye and how it tears your heart. He talked about everything, business, art, medicine, and she was hung up in his imagination.
Jackie Sheridan’s mood had been broken.
She woke up late on Sunday morning. It was December 22nd, the first day of winter. She had a slight alcohol headache which made everything a little mad and hard to grip but felt very confident about one thing; there were no promises made.
She reached under the bed and brought out a cardboard box, taking from it her manuscript. This had been the summer. It was to be winter once more, and she wondered what sadness was about to befall her. Whatever it was, it would befall her somewhere else.
This life living in a bedsitter was done. She packed up her things, collected up the manuscript, bras, panties, sweaters and jeans, put everything into her old car and drove away from London with nothing but cigarettes and chocolate to keep her going.
Hiding in a castle, writing by candlelight, Raven wrote paragraphs that did not stumble, pages shone brightly, a kind of poetry that even with all the senses, sooner or later, would require a translator.
© Harry Hogg 2020
