Beneath the Roar of the City
"Red and black, red and black, turn the cards
think red, think black, not blue. Why not blue?
Blue's cool. Blue, blue, my love is blue --
can't remember the rest," she says to a stranger above
but commuters never see what lies beneath their feet.
She blinks, clears blurred eyes. The blue sign promises
Kings Cross, Liverpool Street, Moorgate, Whitechapel.
Once she could have caught a train to take her away
but the pain in her head is fading; necessity lessened,
fever subsiding. She sits on the pink and white tiles turning cards
with plenty of time because one day, he said, will be morning.
Solitaire palls, so she turns to clock patience.
Watch out for kings -- four of them here.
The last one keeps promises; he will give her morning
though the clock's stopped forever at a quarter past four.
The cops move her on so she tiptoes out into the roar of the city
where the air's sweet today, like daffodils and jasmine.
She never strays too far from Baker Street.
She has wounds. Some are deep. Some still bleed
but she's learnt to survive, to stay in her place, be safe.
Today she finds what she needs with no trouble;
closes her mind, makes some cash and spends it,
curls in an alley and sleeps. Another anonymous trick,
and a drink this time, which is kind, though she thinks
the vodka will trickle through the holes in her veins
and the man will complain. The thought is lost
as she slip-slithers back into sleep.
She wakes to find someone's stolen her cash
so she goes back to sit on the pink and white tiles
where the clock's still saying a quarter past four.
Red and black, red and black, jack, queen, king, cross.
No, not cross, not even St Pancras, and he wouldn't notice
her scars, being far too absorbed in his holiness loneliness.
She visits her king in his cardboard castle; he sees
the criss-crosses creeping up her arms. She scowls.
His breath isn't royal -- he should smell of primroses,
buttercups, coltsfoot, not rooks and apples and ash.
They drink his cheap cider, smoke a joint, talk of orchards
and bees and piglets. He says he'll plant her an apple tree
where the grass grows and earth smells of truffles.
She lives for days on that thought when she's back
at the pink and white tiles and the blue sign
that promises Liverpool Street. She'll never walk there;
the name makes her think of offal floating in pools of blood
like last night, only it wasn't liver and kidneys and lights
and hearts or diamonds and spades and clubs --
just a red lamp, and maybe not even her blood.
The man shoved her roughly, ground her into the dirt
so her scars turned black. More tattoos. Marked forever.
Mark? Was that his name? Or Jack?
Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack climb down into
old York Road Station, and break through below
where trains thunder by but just ghosts alight.
No, not Jack. His real name was marked on his forehead.
He'd paid well enough, as she'd lost so much blood
and he said he felt pity, though his eyes said not.
He stays with her now, will be with her always;
he's touched her. She cannot undo the touch.
She thinks she might have made enough cash now
to run past the gate that leads to the moors like the one in --
what was the name of the book? A girl, a gate,
an escape to the moors, a boy who was king,
and a lamb -- or was the lamb the king? --
and the sun always shone, there were kites on the crags,
but that's the wrong song, that's the one where she flies
to a land, a land? No. She can't remember.
Under the arches, past the blue sign, there's a chapel of white.
She could lie down forever beside sweet Lethe and sleep,
but Jack or Mark or Damian would return
with his heart on his sleeve, dripping terror and paint,
and he'd cover her mouth and choke her again,
pouring white acid down her throat.
So much for the white, paint it black, or deep purple
or red, always red, simply red, but that's wrong,
not that song, no the song can't remain the same.
Put on your red shoes, dance the night away beneath trains,
like Anna Karenina, what a wonderful name,
in that book long ago. Under a train -- what would that be like?
A screeching of metal on metal? Bright sparks?
A smell seeps past her of bleeding and death
and Jack's essence crawls up her nostrils, invades her brain,
and turns her thoughts to mildew and dust.
She takes out her knife, croons a soft lullaby to the droplets
that glisten along her arm. Then she deals more cards,
finds the Jack of Hearts. He's turned back to paper, and there!
He's gone! Fluttering away on a breeze of commuters
who fly past with never a care for the girl
at a quarter past four in a dream of orchards
where walls are tiles of green and cream
and there may still be buttered scones still for tea
in that land of poems, but that's another book,
and it's gone, all the books are gone, all the flowers gone
and it's still the wrong song.
The next day she knows her strength won't last,
so she seeks out her king, but he's moved. He's left her
some cider, a spliff, a note saying, 'have fun'.
She sleeps well that night, never noticing how
her body is used by the ghosts that inhabit
the silence that lurks in the shadowy corners
beneath the roar of the city.
But when she wakes up, the tiles have turned grey.
She knows that she'll never go home to the moors
through the gate where little boy holds a lamb
whose coat is matted with blood and Jack says,
"You see?" as he inserts fingers into her scars
and shows her visions of what will happen
when he winds her guts round and around and around
and ties the ends to a train as it hurtles along the tunnel.
The lamb with the cross sits and watches and weeps
for the girl and a morning that will never come.
She fades in and out of dreams of apples,
where commuters scream forbidden knowledge
and she wonders: why must she suffer the sins of commuters?
The sins of the ghosts who wander down York Road?
The sins of the queen beneath Kings Cross station?
The sins of the pigeons, banished forever?
The lamb lays down his cross on the lawn and says,
"You're right, it's not fair; I'll plant you your orchard.
Eat apples. Drink cider. Be merry."
"But you bleed, like me," she says.
"I know," says the lamb. "They hammered a brace of nails
into my head and hung all their rotting meat up on the hook.
I think they did that to you as well."
"Yes, they did," she says. "Come, let's share a cup."
They drink long and deep and at last her dream
comes true. She picks up the lamb and walks through the gate
and onto the moors, but a bloodied king stands there
reeking of death and dressed in cardboard,
waving a bottle of cider and smiling.
"The Jack of Hearts?" she says. "Where's my king?"
The lamb ignores her; says, "Don't worry,
the clock's stopped saying a quarter past four."
She looks, and he's right, it's turning back slowly
to morning. Her scars are healing; the gnawing ache
in her guts is gone. "I want..."
"You want?" The lamb looks puzzled.
"I want to save him."
"Save whom?"
"Save Jack."
"Are you mad?"
"Most likely, but look --" and she points out a man
on the Baker Street platform, his flesh filled with maggots.
"You're insane," the lamb says, "But don't let me stop you."
She feels the whoosh of the wind down the platform,
moves up behind the Jack of Hearts.
"Come then, my love," she says, stroking his back,
before pushing him gently. They tumble together
in an agony of sparks, see angels amidst the slicing of wheels
and blood spattered strangers.
The lamb turns away and mutters, "Betrayal."
"It won't do, you know," says the real cardboard king,
who's been watching, bemused. He kicks the lamb
into an apple tree. There it sits munching forbidden fruit.
"Thought as much," says the king, as he tries
to grasp a memory of mint sauce. What's that?
Something green? He swoops down and falls
the length of the escalator, felling commuters in his wake.
In the midst of this folly, he cries, "Off with his head!"
The people panic, beseech gods and mothers,
rage against immigrants, dole scroungers, foreigners,
layabouts, beggars, then gods and mothers again.
The king gathers up his pieces of cardboard
takes a swig from his bottle and wonders what
all the fuss is about. No matter. His head hurts,
but that's nothing new. He tries to think. A girl? A lamb?
He doesn't remember, but needs drink, as the cops
grab his arm for the fourth time today,
frogmarch him upstairs, out of the station,
and into the roar of the city.
April 27, 2011 at 6:41PM