And Your Girl Can Sing

Chapter 53: Das Leben Geht Weiter

    A sonata had started playing. I opened my eyes and turned my head towards the direction of the music. A violin player, his eyes closed, his hands drawing out the music, coaxing the notes into existence. An open case in front of him, pennies inside with one five mark note. I watched him for a few seconds, my body turned towards the music. George's comment in a rough, bitter Scouse accent: "Ye think the amount we get is enough but we play for eight hours and get pittance. Job of an artist, that." A sudden change of film and John floated into my mind, right before Anna slapped him, his mouth open in a crazy laugh, his eyes seeming to hold the same laughter but they were like the thinnest glass, one touch and they'd break, break apart.

I set my jaw and walked over to the violinist, an older man with a receding hairline, and saw that he had a monkey perched on his shoulder. The music swayed, rose and fell like the body of water we were standing in front of and the monkey held on to the man's neck, holding onto it like a boat at sea. Something moved me and I took out my wallet and poured the entire contents of it into the case and the man looked up at me and smiled slightly. The two of us looking at each other, we shared a slight understanding until I broke the gaze and moved away, breaking into another run, heading back towards the Top Ten.

***

    Two things led me back into the dorm: the first hit me like a ton of bricks: the smell of drying laundry. The second took me a while. I neared the door and heard loud, raucous guitar chords being played, the fingers in the wrong positions, resulting in a dissonant sounding A in a G major chord but still being played with the same ferocity, a voice singing, rising and then falling again, "Oh dirty Maggie Mae, they have taken her away, and she never walk down Lime street any more—"

    I raised my hand to knock but snatched it away when I heard loudly, "Fuck you!" and the sound of something hitting the floor. The blood froze in my veins; I wasn't sure if I should continue any more, but I closed my eyes and after a few contemplative seconds knocked.

    "Fuck off!" came the answer from inside.

    Admittedly, he didn't know who was at the door, and I tried to speak. "John, it's me, please can I come in—"

     "I don't want it." A short, brusque response, the sound of his palm hitting a piece of furniture and multiple curses. I sank into a squat and then stretched my legs before me, leaning against the hallway wall outside the door. The guitar started up again, loud noises, angst thrown into a song and I closed my eyes again.

    I looked myself in the mirror, studying my features, trying not to think about how I had his mouth, his eyes. The sight became too much and I backed up and leaned my head against the smooth tile wall of the bathroom, groaning a little.

    "Love, are you all right? We can talk about it if you'd like to."

    "Don't want to," I forced the words out and looked down at my boots, trying to steady my breathing and undo the knot in my stomach. "He'll be here any second," the voice continued. A male voice spoke from next to her. "It's going to be okay. I'm here."

    Bloody lawyer isn't going to help anything, I thought. But the doorbell rang and the voices went away and I slowly unlocked the door and there he stood, the first time I had seen him since that night in May when he left. My gaze stayed at his feet. A pair of dark wash jeans were tucked into hiking boots.

    "Cora," he said.

    I looked away.

    "You can talk to him," the lawyer said.

    "I can speak for myself, thanks," I said shortly. Mum stepped forwards but he laughed, and I jumped at the sound. "Oh, darling, you're much the same."

    "How can you stand there and—" Mum started but the lawyer put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. My dad backed up a little, embarrassed but attempting to hide it. I looked up and inhaled sharply. He looked so different. The look in my eyes turned cold and I stood there, taking in my family and one stranger who was keeping everything together. Everyone looked like they wanted me to say something but I bit my lip and thought, I'm only ten, let them speak first.

    "Cora," he tried again and I spat out, "Are you here to hit mum again?"

    It was like glass broke and the shards burst like a firework explosion, raining on everything in sight. My mum blanched, obviously not expecting this, dad's eyes grew round, horrified. "Darling, dear, please, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I went to rehab, I'm not v-violent anymore, I wish the night never happened, I never wanted you to see that—"

    "Then why the hell did you—"

    The lawyer stepped forwards. "Please, Cora—"

    "Bloody... fuckin'... hell..."

    "John?" my head snapped up, the vortex of words and memories running through my head disappeared like bath water after someone pulled the drain.

    "Why do you always fucking sit where other people are trying to have a moment to themselves?" John tossed at me before he retreated back into the room. I remembered Martin, and how I had hid in his closet while John had poured a bit of his soul out that night. John's hand hesitated, deciding whether to close the door on me or not, and it retreated back to his side which I took as a good sign. I softly entered the room and closed the door behind me, looking up at its transformation. Black t-shirts and socks hung from twine, clipped with old-fashioned clothespins, the twine artfully strung between nails in the walls, obviously the source of the laundry-like smell.

    "How do ye know who is whose?" is what decided to fall out of my mouth. "Won't Paul be a tad pissed if you walk round wearing his knickers?"

    John gave me a glare from his bed. "They're categorized by location. Kind of. We hope so, anyways." He flicked a hand at a sock hanging by his head and it fell to the floor. I saw what had made the crash on the floor before—the camel lamp from Hamburg. It somehow survived the trip and now it was lying on the concrete ground, the lampshade torn. I walked over and picked it up, fingering the tear before putting it gently back on the tiny dresser.

    "Trash," John sneered. I gazed at him for a while and he said softly, "Come here, love, I'm sorry about that." I walked over to him and sat on his bed, feeling the cheap springs sink under our combined weights, feeling his arm wrap around me and hold me close, murmuring something reassuring in my ear. I basked in it for a moment but then remembered with a jolt why I had come rushing back.

    "John."

    "Yes, love?" he asked, stroking my hair, a dopey look on his face, all the fight seemingly gone.

    "I love you."

    He looked at me for a long time and I looked back. That was the thing about John. So much could be said within a stare, a loving stare, a cold stare. A stare paints a thousand words. I saw the look in his eyes before when Anna got the call and the look now and the difference, and gave him a look of my own as he opened his mouth to speak.