Shape-Shifter

by Pauline Melville

‘Will I get you another?’ McGregor asked. But the old man had closed up in the darkness like a flower in the night. A restlessness overcame McGregor and he stood up:

  ‘Good luck, then.’

  ‘And you, sir,’ came the voice from the invisible man. Flakes of wet snow came to rest on McGregor’s eyelashes as he walked with the urgency of a man not knowing where he is going.

  An hour later, poised between conviviality and violence, McGregor stood in a bar crowded with lunchtime drinkers. He was locked in intense conversation with the father of a baby with no future, a pale young man with red hair. The young father’s lack of optimism was depressing him:

  ‘How old did you say the baby was?’ asked McGregor. The man consulted his watch.

  ‘Eight and a half hours old,’ he said dejectedly. ‘He’ll never get a home of his own, poor little blighter. Look how many homeless there are.’

  McGregor became determined to raise the man’s spirits. It was like pushing an enormous boulder uphill.

  ‘And there’s no jobs,’ said the man. ‘He’ll never get a job. That’s for sure. No chance.’

  McGregor tried harder.

  ‘Och, I dunno. You’ve got a wee boy. Kids are clever these days. They understand computers. They go to college and all sorts of strange things.’

  ‘Only if they’ve got money.’

  McGregor’s face was flushed. He tried again.

  ‘They get grants. They can do anything.’

  Suspended in a corner of the bar was a television set with the sound turned down, showing images of soliders chasing and firing on people somewhere in the Middle East. McGregor hoped the young man wouldn’t see it.

  ‘D’you reckon?’ The red-haired man looked faintly hopeful. McGregor began to sweat:

  ‘Jesus. Kids are magic these days. They speak out. They don’t put up with any shit.’ Somewhere in the back of his brain, McGregor knew that if the man slipped back into despondency, he would be obliged to punch him off his stool.

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ said the man, reluctantly.

  McGregor’s voice rose above the buzz of conversation around him as he made a final effort:

  ‘Of course I’m fucking right. Kids have got everything. I wish I was nine hours old. All snuggly and comfy. I wish I was a fucking kid. And another thing. Kids love music. He’ll be a musician. That’s what’s going to happen. He’s going to be a great musician. They all play in bands. They make terrific music.’

  McGregor held his breath.

  ‘Yeah. You’re right, I suppose.’ The man managed a wan grin.

  ‘Right y’are then,’ said McGregor, triumphantly.

  The future of the child assured and the man saved from injury, McGregor made to leave. He drained the remains of his whisky:

  ‘Slainte Mhath,’ he said in Gaelic.

  The high street looked familiar but he did not recognise it. A lighted bus drew up beside him like an invitation and he stepped onto it.

  The upper deck of the bus was brightly lit. Stale smoke and a litter of cigarette ends on the floor gave it the bleakly cheerful air of a public bar that had unexpectedly taken to travelling through the dark afternoon. McGregor sat bolt upright in the back seat. The beginnings of a transformation were taking place. His hands gripped the rail in front of him as if he were on the Big Wheel of a funfair. One blazing green eye was wide open, staring ahead with fierce energy, the other was lazily half open like that of a waking child. Faint streaks of mud from the morning’s work still decorated his face. Dried mud stiffened his jeans. Somewhere along the way, his jacket had taken off on a journey of its own. The same fine dusting of sand and cement that covered his navy-blue polo-neck sweater caused his hair to stick up in pointed, uneven spikes. Here and there in the spikes sat spangles of snow. Altogether, he looked like one of those creatures that has lain immobile in mud-flats for the duration of a drought waiting for the rains to come in order to return to life.

  The wide-open eye focused with dislike on the passengers ahead of him. Suddenly, his expression changed. A look of intense delight spread over his face. His shoulders moved from side to side and he tapped his feet as he whistled the tune of ‘A Hundred Pipers an a’ an a’’. He sang the words out, savouring each one, on his face an expression of menacing bliss. The passengers remained silent. No one looked at him. McGregor finished the song and looked expectantly round the bus. The look twisted into a sneer:

  ‘You’re all dead people,’ he shouted.

  The man in front of him stared deliberately out of the window. McGregor rose to his feet and held onto the rail to steady himself:

  ‘What would you say if I said “Let’s all get off the bus and light a big bonfire in the street”?’ he enquired, enthusiastically.

  There was no response. Two women at the front of the bus continued to talk, one of them in a voice as clear as a bell in winter.

  ‘How about setting fire to the bus?’ he suggested. ‘How about giving it a Viking’s funeral?’

  No one responded. Attracted by the only sign of life, the conversation at the other end of the bus, McGregor stepped carefully down the centre aisle like a seaman navigating the narrow passageway of a rolling ship. With a jerk, he sat down in the empty front seat next to the two women:

  ‘Excuse me, lady.’ He spoke in the dangerously polite tones of the extremely drunk. The crippled woman with the shining face pulled her lame leg in towards her. The leg, much shorter than the other one, was fitted with a contraption of metal and leather, terminating in a shiny, black, surgical boot that seemed too solid to contain a foot.

  ‘Never mind the leg, lady. Legs aren’t important. What happened to your leg, anyway?’

  The woman, unruffled by the question, began to give the history of her malformed foot. Her rational explanation and unwavering gaze horrified McGregor. He shut his eyes. When he opened them again, the woman had turned back to her friend and was discussing the essay she had to write on Jane Austen for her evening class.

  ‘A man’s a man for a’ that,’ he mumbled, attempting to roll himself a cigarette from his tobacco tin as the bus swayed. He lit the cigarette and fished out the brown pay packet from his pocket. He took out the long, thin wage-slip:

  ‘Forty-eight pounds fucking emergency TAX.’ He bellowed the last word. ‘I’ve been mugged by the government.’ He scrumpled up the paper and flung it down. Annoyed by the lack of impact, he ground the paper serpent into the ridged floor with his foot. Suddenly, his limbs turned to lead and a great weariness took hold of him:

  ‘Mud. Cold. Shit. Wind. Steel. Rain. Tiredness. That’s all I’ve got to look forward to for the rest of my life. The grants have been granted and I haven’t got one,’ he proclaimed, bitterly. His eyelids drooped shut. To the concern of the two women, who were watching with polite attention, an extraordinary force of gravity seemed to pull McGregor’s features earthwards. He forced his mouth open, baring his teeth in a fixed death’s head grin. His fists were clenched. He remained like that for several moments in an epic struggle against invading tiredness. Then his face relaxed and his eyes shot open:

  ‘A hundred pipers an a’ an a’,’ he sang, enticingly, with the faintest of threats. The bus rounded a corner and the tobacco tin dropped from his knee to the floor. He regarded it with awe:

  ‘Isn’t it a wonderful thing,’ he said, ‘that the floor exists to stop things falling through the air?’ He pocketed the tin and staggered to his feet. Eyes shut, he put both hands to his head. The mud in his hair gave it the texture of bark. McGregor enjoyed, for at least a minute, the knowledge that he had turned into a tree. He had the distinct sensation that his feet were putting down roots into the floor of the bus; his head sprouting branches that were about to push their way through the roof, each branch adorned with tingling, green buds. He shook his head and opened his eyes. The passengers sat dully before him. He regarded them with disdain and announced in the grand manner of an actor:

  ‘I am leaving this travelling hearse!’
r />   He made his way to the head of the stairs and turned once more, with a theatrical flourish, to address his reluctant audience:

  ‘I hope your legs turn to gristle and chickens eat them!’

  They heard his boots clattering, too fast, down the steps. The bus stopped. The word ‘WANKERS’ drifted up to them. Nobody moved. The passengers remained pinned to their seats by this new definition of themselves as the bus drew away.

  In the underground station, the driver of the tube train leaned from his window and glared at McGregor with such malevolence, such implacable hatred written on his swarthy features, that McGregor was brought to a halt on the empty platform. The doors shut in McGregor’s face. The driver continued to stare. The train remained stationary. McGregor launched into a sweet, tuneful whistle. Without warning, the driver turned and pressed a button. The doors hissed open. Within minutes of boarding the train, McGregor slept a profound and dreamless sleep, his legs stretched out across the gap between the seats.

  In this way, McGregor was borne, deep in the intestinal passages of the earth, across London. Through the black tunnels, under the river, he was carried along, first in one direction and then another. Overhead, the mammoth city, with its millions of citizens in their neon-lit offices, went about its business. And not a solitary soul was aware that far beneath the ground underfoot, McGregor was voyaging.

  McGregor opened his eyes. The train had stopped. The doors stood open. He got off without knowing which station he was in. The platform was deserted. The air was warm. A numbness in his feet made him unsure that they were touching the ground and gave him the feeling of floating through the yellow-lit passages and hallways. For all he knew, he had slept for three days and three nights. Under one arch, a black dog that had strayed into the underground blocked his way, bristling and barking. McGregor stopped and whistled at it. The dog lost interest and padded away, sniffing at the grimy, cream-tiled walls.

  And then a wondrous sight met McGregor’s eyes.

  Where the tunnel opened out onto the flat area below the escalators, a black woman, in her forties, was dancing vigorously on the concourse under the high, domed ceiling. All on her own, she boogied and partied to strains of music that filtered down from the station entrance, a beatific smile on her face. In one hand she held a can of lager, taking swigs from it as her hips swung from side to side. Some other black commuters passed by, giving her a wide berth. McGregor watched, enchanted, as if all his travels had been expressly to bring him to this one point at this particular moment. One side of her coat hung down lower than the other and she’d hitched up her skirt into her belt. She finished the lager and threw down the can. It skittered over the floor with an echoing rattle close to where a uniformed transport guard was sweeping. Then she bebopped over to a pile of carrier-bags, dumped where the curved wall reached the ground and rummaged for some more beer. The side of her shoe was split open by the big-toe joint:

  ‘Lard,’ she said. ‘Look how me shoe is poppin’ offa me foot.’ She opened the can, took a gulp and jived her way back to the centre of the hall. McGregor looked on appreciatively. Then she spotted him. Her eyes gleamed with pleasure:

  ‘Come daalin’.’ She addressed him with carefree boldness. ‘Dance wid me, nuh.’

  McGregor approached bashfully:

  ‘Och. I canna dance,’ he said.

  ‘Everybody can dance,’ she insisted and continued to shimmy round the hall. Suddenly, McGregor joined her, leaping into the air and executing a wild, jerky Highland fling accompanied by a joyous, warlike scream. The woman shook with laughter.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ said McGregor.

  ‘Yuh lie,’ she screeched with laughter again and stopped to catch her breath. ‘It still snowin’ up there?’ she asked.

  ‘I dunno,’ said McGregor.

  ‘Lemme tell you sometin’.’ She beckoned him closer. ‘I was up there and a cold wind from Russia came an’ fasten in me back. That damn wind bit me like a snake. So I come down here.’

  ‘And let me tell you something, lady,’ said McGregor. ‘You are the first person I have seen all day with a big smile on their face. And I love you for it.’

  They regarded each other with mutual approval.

  ‘Yuh sweet, man. Yuh come to carry me way wid you?’ she teased. ‘First yuh must gimme a kiss. Come nuh, man. Yuh gwaan kiss me or what?’ she said boldly.

  ‘Lady. You are the first real bit of humanity I’ve come across today, the first person with a wee bit of optimism and I’d love to kiss you.’ She was close to him. Her breath smelled sweet and sharp like olives. He glanced round. The station had filled up with black people. He felt a little unsure of himself:

  ‘Wait a minute. Wait a minute, lady.’ He approached the guard who was still sweeping:

  ‘Excuse me, sir. Excuse me – er this lady would like me to give her a kiss. Would that cause any bother at all?’

  The guard stopped sweeping and surveyed the concourse. Three youths were lounging against the wall opposite. He scratched his head:

  ‘Well, it just could do. A lot of these youts still hotheaded after the riots, you know. Them could jus’ get hold of the wrong end of the stick, if you know what I mean. Them could jus’ think “Here is another white man who think he own a black woman like all through history”.’ The guard touched McGregor kindly on the arm. ‘I tell you what I suggest. You go on ahead up the stairs and let the lady follow you. Then we don’ have no trouble. You can go for a nice drink together somewhere and see how you get on?’ He winked. ‘Lemme go tell her.’

  He walked over to the woman who was fumbling in her plastic bag. He spoke to her for a few moments and then came back:

  ‘You jus’ go on up de stairs like I said. Don’ even look back. Let she jus’ pick up she bags and follow you.’

  McGregor hesitated but the woman was smiling and blowing kisses at him:

  ‘Right y’are then,’ he said.

  ‘Go on up. She will follow you. OK man?’ The guard slapped him on the arm amicably.

  McGregor did as he was asked. But he was hurt. Some poison had entered him. What the guard had said about history and white men went round in his head. He held onto the rail and the escalator carried him smoothly upwards. Half way up, he turned to check that she was following. Her eyes, blank with disappointment, were fixed on him and she was walking slowly backward away from him through the arched hallway, carrier-bags on each arm like white water-wings. He watched her disappearing as if she were being drawn back into the dark tunnel. Trying to get back down he slipped, cursed, stumbled and clung onto the rail. The escalator bore him steadily up towards the curtain of snow that hung in the station entrance. Something was happening to him that he did not recognise. A hot substance, like lava, crawled slowly down his cheeks.

  Later that night, the police arrested a man in Camberwell. He was smashing shop windows, one after the other with a scaffolding spanner. As the glass exploded in each one, he yelled:

  ‘I want you to know that I never owned a fucking slave in my life. Never.’

  The Truth is in the Clothes

  LATER, MUCH LATER, I CAME TO THE CONCLUSION that she was a manipulator, this black woman from Soweto; powerful certainly, a shrewd entrepreneur and a hugely talented designer, but, finally, without those powers of sorcery that I initially attributed to her. The gifts of the genuine shaman overlap in places with the psychological wizardry of the charlatan. After a lapse of time, I became convinced that her powers were more akin to those of the confidence trickster.

  This is the story.

  Late one night, there was a knock on my door. Zephra, my singer friend from Trinidad, stood on the doorstep with a small group of people. She was radiant, bubbling with that energy performers get after a show. Whether it was the light falling on her from the doorway or the brightness of the outfit she wore, I couldn’t tell, but she eclipsed the others:

  ‘Hi. Sorry to call so late.’ Her eyes shone with exuberance. ‘This is Kalimbo, a band from Sou
th Africa I’ve just been working with.’ Two shortish men, one with a pork-pie hat, the other bare headed, stepped shyly over the threshold. Behind them entered a tall woman with a headwrap.

  ‘Come in. Come in.’ The front room had that air of peaceful expectancy that rooms unaccountably acquire after being tidied. ‘I’ve only got rum in the house. Will that do everybody?’ The woman asked for fruit juice.

  Zephra trailed after me into the kitchen, chatting while I fixed rum drinks with ice, freshly squeezed limes and Cassis:

  ‘Old Oak rum!’ she squealed. ‘I ain’ seen that since I was home.’

  It was good to see her so happy, Zephra, with her tremulous spirit and history of breakdowns. She was still thin, her eyes enormous in a gaunt, brown face. I ignored the remnants of a black eye, a tiny, upturned crescent of crimson under her right eye.

  ‘What are you wearing?’ I asked. ‘It looks wonderful.’

  Under the bright kitchen lights, she held up her arms to show off the outfit. Shocking pink cotton cloth with great, batwing sleeves hung down to her mid-calves. Printed in black on the cloth were African heads and the occasional brilliant green banana tree set against a hot orange sun. Her hat was pill-box shaped, the same bright pink, edged with black and with two stiffened, black, batwing shapes on either side.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she said. ‘I tell you, girl, when I step out on that stage tonight, these clothes uplifted my spirit. My songs just took off like a flight of birds. You must check out this band. You will love their music. I know it.’

  We took the drinks back into the front room. It was darker in there, lit only by a table-lamp. The men were seated in a corner, talking quietly. The woman stood in the centre of the room.

  ‘This is Maisie.’ Zephra introduced her.

  ‘I am pleased to meet you.’ The voice was low and sweet as an underground river. She was a broad but lean-faced African woman with thin lips, her complexion charcoal black with patches of bronze on the cheekbones. I guessed she was about forty, tall and rangy. The light raincoat she held bunched round her was the colour of earth but in no way drab. Round her head, she had twisted, carelessly but with immense style, a rough piece of maroon cloth patterned with a diagram of white drumsticks.