Eating Air

by Pauline Melville

  Cyrus too had mentioned a puzzling incident. Cyrus had been out with Hetty and some actor friends at a restaurant after the show. For no good reason, Hetty had suddenly thrown a glass of wine smack into the face of the mild-mannered young actor sitting opposite her. It came out of nowhere. They were not even having an argument. After she had done it she sat with a strange smile on her face.

  ‘You bitch,’ a bearded gay actor sitting next to her exploded. The young man looked dismayed and hurt as the wine dripped from his chin on to the tablecloth. She apologised, but the other diners noticed that she cast her eyes down at the table as if she wanted to laugh.

  ‘What on earth made you do that?’ asked Ella.

  ‘Sweetie. I couldn’t resist it.’ She made light of the whole incident. In that way, Hetty sometimes revealed her fangs.

  *

  Two hours after Donny had left, Ella lay on her bed in a high-alert dream state. Hetty let herself in with a pile of shopping.

  ‘Hi. I’m back. Has anyone called for me? It’s so hot. I’m just going to take myself a quick bath.’ She dumped the shopping on the table and went straight into the other room. Ella heard clothes being discarded on the floor of the tiny bathroom.

  When Hetty came out of the shower, Ella was standing on the bed with her ear pressed to the partition wall. Hetty wore a brightly patterned kimono. She unwrapped her head from a towel and a cataract of damp blonde hair fell to her shoulders.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Listening,’ said Ella.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘To see if anyone is in there with Cyrus.’

  The bed sagged as Ella jumped off it. Hetty rubbed her hair with the towel.

  ‘Honey, shall we go have an Italian? I don’t feel like cooking.’

  Half an hour later they were sitting at their favourite table in the window of Luigi’s, a small restaurant in Greek Street. It was dark outside. The bottom of the window was nearly the same height as the table. Ella sat with the large plate-glass window to her left. Hetty was facing it. Hetty suddenly shrieked and pointed at the window.

  ‘Hey Ellie. Look at that.’

  A man’s head was bouncing along the bottom of the restaurant window. No torso was visible. He must have been crouching on the pavement outside and progressing in a sort of Cossack dance movement. Both index fingers were inserted in the sides of his mouth, elongating it to make a mad, humorous face. Hetty laughed out loud. The head disappeared without explanation into the night. Ella ran to the door and looked out in the street. There was no sign of him. She came back.

  ‘That was Donny.’

  ‘Who’s he? He looks wild.’

  Ella hesitated for a moment and then chose not to tell Hetty what had happened.

  ‘A friend of Cyrus’s. Cyrus calls him Crazy Horse.’

  Hetty twirled strands of pasta around her fork, then shoved it in her mouth. She took a gulp of wine.

  ‘Crazy Horse was a Sioux from Nebraska. That’s where I’m from. He used to paint his face blue when he went to war, with tiny white dots for hailstones so that his enemies came face to face with a blizzard. Anyway, you must introduce me to Donny. He sounds a trip.’

  *

  Although Hetty had a sense of fun, she was pragmatic in her choice of partners. She sought out men of financial stability. Hank, her current boyfriend, was a balding executive who wore navy-blue nylon socks and whose white shirt smelled of Paco Rabanne after-shave. He was married. There was a photograph of him with Hetty taken in America, before he was posted to England. In the photo Hetty stands with her arm around Hank’s waist. The bobby-soxiness of her blonde curls was that of a girl-next-door model on the front page of McCalls magazine. She was leaning her head against Hank’s shoulder.

  But Hank and Hetty had broken up acrimoniously. Somehow or other that very same photograph of the two of them had mysteriously been posted to Hank’s wife. Hetty pleaded innocence.

  ‘Hank. How could you think I would do such a thing?’ Her eyes filled with false, fiery tears as she spoke. ‘Someone at the office must have sent it. I don’t know who. They must have been jealous of us and got hold of the photo somehow. I kept it in my bag. I left the bag on my desk. Anyone could have taken it.’

  For a while Hetty stayed off work. She hung around in the flat looking through newspapers for another job. Meanwhile, Donny had disappeared again. Ella waited on tenterhooks but there was no sign of him. One evening she saw him making his way down Wardour Street. He strode along as if he were on parade.

  ‘I was going to come up, eh. But I had a date with a magistrate.’

  Ella asked him round for a meal. Finally, she confided in Hetty and told her what had happened.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Ella sweetie. I’ll cook.’

  *

  Donny arrived in a clean shirt and new jacket. He seemed stiff, unsure of himself and hostile. He had made an attempt to flatten his hair down with some grease but it still sprang up. The girls brought in plates of spaghetti and a dish of runner beans.

  ‘What’s this?’ He regarded the food with suspicion.

  ‘Spaghetti.’

  Hetty opened a bottle of red wine:

  ‘There’s no dope so we’ve splashed out on some wine.’

  ‘That’s what I like to hear – the words “splashed out”.’ Donny gave up trying to use a fork and spoon and tackled the spaghetti with a knife and fork. ‘I’m all in favour of squandering. If I found I was dying and I still had a couple of pence in my pocket I would crawl to a news-stand and buy a newspaper. I couldn’t bear to save money by mistake. Look.’ He pulled his jeans pockets inside out to show their emptiness.

  As the evening went on he relaxed and gained confidence. Rocking back in his chair he embarked on stories which made the girls laugh:

  ‘When the magistrate asked me why I was sitting on top of a wall at two in the morning with two Burtons’ suits over my arm, I told him that I was practising my golf. The magistrate didn’t get the joke. Dumb as a box of hair. But I suppose it’s the job of some people to make the world a duller place. The ditchwater brigade. How do you like my new jacket?’

  Hetty eased back in her chair and lit a cigarette. Ella found herself overcome with shyness. Hetty was relaxed. Ella felt that her own tongue was nailed to the bottom of her mouth; a clockwork tongue that clacked now and then, incomprehensibly. Hetty noticed.

  ‘Ella is a bit in love with you, you know,’ she remarked with gay malice.

  Donny’s eyebrows shot up and he looked at Ella. The wine was working on him. He became expansive.

  ‘So she should be. What’s wrong with that? On the other hand …’ His mood darkened. ‘If music be the food of love, shoot the pianist, I say. Where is Cyrus, by the way?’

  ‘Working.’

  ‘At the ballet school?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was an awkward silence.

  ‘Do you know what the Russians say when there’s a silence like that at the table?’ Donny grinned.

  ‘No. What?’ Ella was clearing the plates.

  ‘They say, “A policeman has just been born.”’

  ‘Did the police ever catch up with you that day?’ asked Ella.

  ‘No. Thank fuck.’ Donny nearly lurched backwards off his chair.

  ‘Do you not like policemen?’ enquired Hetty.

  ‘Not particularly. That’s why I prefer cats to dogs. You don’t often see a cat on the end of a policeman’s lead. Dogs are collaborators.’

  Hetty handed Donny a cigarette from a pack of Marlboro. He lit it and leaned back in his chair, looking at Ella as she came back from the sink to the table. She wore a blue summer dress. Her black hair was tied loosely at the nape of her long Modigliani neck. She smoothed her dress over her knees. He spoke quietly, looking away from her.

  ‘If you have to choose between love and liberty, choose liberty. The desire for love and the quest for the grail are at odds with each other. And I am for the quest. Actually I’m addic
ted to the fucking quest.’ Then he looked down with an odd, coquettish expression in his eyes. ‘If you want to be free, you can’t be passionate.’

  Hetty was smiling.

  ‘So what was this obscene song Cyrus was telling us about?’

  ‘What song?’ Donny looked mystified.

  ‘Cyrus told us you sang a filthy song you’d learned in the army.’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  Hetty and Donny helped themselves to more wine. The two of them became more expansive as Ella retreated into herself. Donny regaled them with stories of the dole-hoods, the ne’er-do-wells and mystery-hunters of Soho. Then he went on to tell them about the army.

  ‘For recruiting they always use a drummer and a flautist. I was only fifteen and I fell for it. But as soon as I hit the parade ground I knew I had fallen amongst madmen. All those red-faced sergeants bawling and screaming in your face. Why couldn’t they have some manners? If only they could have said, “Would you mind very much coming to attention” or, “A little right turn here wouldn’t come amiss,” I might have cooperated.’

  Coils of blue cigarette smoke rose into the air. From somewhere outside in the street came the sound of music from a barrel organ. The ashtray overflowed. Ella pushed the bottle away with a shake of her head.

  ‘No more wine thanks. I’ve got a dress rehearsal of Coppelia tomorrow.’ She hoped to sound impressive, but the information didn’t seem to affect Donny, who was laughing at something Hetty said.

  She went to open the window and returned to sit down. Hetty had lit a candle, although the summer evening was still light. The candle began to gutter. Donny jumped to his feet. Keeping a delicate beat with his arms as if he were conducting a band he performed a neat little dance step and began to sing quietly in a tuneful voice:

  Eyes right,

  Foreskins tight

  Arseholes to the rear

  We are the boys

  Who make no noise

  When we’re on the hunt for cunt.

  We’re the heroes of the night

  And we’d rather fuck than fight.

  We are the Foreskin Fusilliers.

  The two girls sat astonished at the table. Donny bowed and sat down again.

  ‘I was a boy soldier. That was our anthem,’ he announced.

  Hetty tossed back her hair and began to laugh. Soon, she and Donny were convulsed with hilarity.

  ‘Well, thanks very much ladies,’ said Donny, finishing the dregs of his wine. ‘I’m away back to my mobile home. I’m residing in The Flying Scotsman tonight.’ He turned to Ella with old-fashioned politeness.

  ‘Will I come and collect you after your rehearsal tomorrow?’

  ‘I don’t know when we’ll finish. Wednesday’s better. I’ll come to the pub in Floral Street after class at two o’clock. How are you going to get back now? It’s late. The tubes have stopped running.’

  ‘I’ll get a taxi.’

  ‘I thought you said you had no money?’

  ‘Look. Getting into a taxi when you have money is no fun. Getting into a taxi when you have no money and then announcing to the driver that you’re Mr Micawber and hoping that something will turn up is great fun.’ The laugh-glint was back in his eye.

  ‘Och. I’ll walk. Thanks again, eh? That was magic.’

  As he opened the door to leave they could hear Cyrus playing a melancholy tune on the piano.

  ‘We should have asked Cyrus,’ said Ella as they washed up.

  ‘I don’t think so. Cyrus could be a rival.’ Hetty looked sideways at Ella then gave her a hug.

  ‘Oh honey. I don’t know what made me say that. I’m sure it’s not true. Donny is cute.’

  *

  Bare light bulbs framed the dressing room mirror. Ella leaned towards the mirror to fix her black eye-liner. The light was harsh. She drew long Nefertiti lines to accentuate her dark eyes and then stared at her face, dissatisfied. Ella wanted to be a bubbling blonde with green eyes like Hetty. Next to Hetty’s effervescent gaiety at dinner Ella had felt gauche.

  It was the dress rehearsal for Coppelia. Ella had been chosen as one of the leading couple in the Hungarian czardas. The call for the corps de ballet came over the tannoy and the dancers ran down the stone stairs. The wings of the theatre were dark and draughty. The dancers assembled off-stage, next to the huge scenic flats which smelled of fish-glue, paint and turpentine. It was chilly there and Ella’s arms came up in goose bumps. She did not feel like dancing. The orchestra struck up with the first shivering flurry of violins. Then came the long drum roll. Ella aligned herself with her partner and ran onto the blue-lit stage to take up her position facing the dark gulf of the empty auditorium.

  Once she embarked on the movements and executed the first steps of the dance her gloom fell away. With every flirtatious step she grew in confidence, expressing the seductive movements through her waist, shoulders, neck and the angle of her head. The music communicated directly to the body, beyond the reach of words, and she was left with the pure pleasure of dance. In the auditorium the director noted the twisting hips and torso that marked Ella out as a young dancer of provocative sexuality. He looked at his assistant and they exchanged approving nods.

  By the end of the performance Ella was elated, her blood was racing and her spirits restored.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Ella reached home after the dress rehearsal to be greeted by chaos. Cyrus was standing on the landing with two friends. A glance inside his flat showed Ella the state of his piano. The wrecked instrument hung on its side, a spray of wooden struts tipped with ivory bursting out of the piano case like so many mad tongues. Bedding was strewn around the room. The black plastic piano stool had been slashed, exposing the cheap grey flock stuffing which spilled out like scum. His two friends moved around restoring the furniture to its original position as best they could.

  ‘What happened?’ She feared it had something to do with Donny.

  A pale-faced Cyrus, his watery blue eyes rolling around in his head, tried to explain.

  ‘I came home. The door was bust open and four guys were sitting in the flat. I don’t know who told them I lived here. One of them had a scar like a ravine down one side of his mouth. He was grinning at me.

  ‘“We’ve come for the party,” he says.

  ‘“There is no party,” says I.

  ‘“There is now,” says the guy.

  ‘I’m trying to keep it cool. So I say: “OK. There’s a party. Not much to drink here though.”

  ‘“Then I’ll have to stab you.” The guy pulls out this steel knife and puts it on the bed beside him. And this other guy with goofy eyes and a knitted V-neck pullover picks up the knife and runs his thumb along the blade and says: “It seems that we know where you live.” I could see the zipper on his flies was broken.

  ‘“What do you guys want?” I’m asking.

  ‘“Heroin,” says Goofy. “Smack. Barbs. Nembutal. Benzedrine, Mogadon. Uppers. Downers. Anything you’ve got.”

  ‘“Or a party,” says the guy with the scar.

  ‘“I haven’t got anything.”

  ‘“Well fuck off out of it then before we kill you.”

  ‘I take off down the stairs and I can hear them smashing everything up behind me.’

  That night Cyrus came to stay next door with the girls.

  ‘Oh it’s all too much for a white lady,’ he moaned, as he settled down on the floor in a sleeping bag.

  *

  Ella put all worries about events at home behind a steel bulkhead and concentrated on dance. She was the youngest dancer ever to have been chosen to understudy Ondine. In the spacious neon-lit rehearsal room next day she focused with rigour on the instructions from the choreographer.

  The costume for Ondine was nothing but gleaming white tights, a white body stocking and pointe shoes dyed white with white ribbons. When she danced, Ella looked like a sculpture that had just stepped out of a block of rough stone and come to life. She looked like stone dreaming.r />
  The choreographer worked through Act One with her until he was satisfied.

  ‘We will leave that for today. Fish-dives everybody please. Ella you need to work on your fish-dives. Everybody find a partner please.’

  He watched Ella as she practised her fish-dives, opening the arch of her arms as she swooped towards the floor to be caught by her partner. Her dark eyes flashed with pleasure. Even the risk of being dropped seemed to exhilarate her. They ended up on the floor laughing as her partner lost his balance. With typical stubbornness she insisted on doing it again. And again. And one more time. She had forgotten entirely about events in the flat.

  A major new production of Swan Lake was planned. It was taken for granted that Ella would be promoted from the corps de ballet to dance the part of one of the four cygnets. It was the traditional first step for any dancer whom the company wanted to groom as a prima ballerina. Meanwhile, in the current production of The Sleeping Beauty Ella enjoyed being part of the corps de ballet, merging with the others in the living labyrinth that formed itself into an intricate moving maze around the principal dancers. The discipline of blending in with the others had its own satisfactions.

  *

  The Sunday after the break-in, Donny, Ella and Cyrus decided to eat breakfast in the Quality Inn on the corner of Coventry Street. Ella was studying the statue of Eros with interest. Eros was poised in the ballet position ‘en attitude en l’air’, but he was leaning forward too much. In real life he would over-balance, she thought. As they walked down Wardour Street, Cyrus grabbed Donny’s arm: ‘That’s him. That’s one of the guys that broke in and wrecked the piano. He looks as if he’s just been getting his script from Boots in the Dilly.’

  Donny turned and saw a thickset man in his forties coming towards them. He wore a dark shirt nearly long enough to conceal the broken zipper on his trousers.

  ‘Hey. Wait a minute there, cha.’ Donny blocked the man’s way.

  The man stared at Donny from boiled eyes. Then a smile cracked open an enormous chasm in the man’s face revealing one or two blackened teeth and the black and silver of amalgam fillings.