When the next train came, he boarded swiftly, found an empty comer and, avoiding all advertisements and shunning eye-contact with the carriages other occupants, sat still and silent until he arrived safely at his destination.
He disembarked and, keeping his eyes firmly on the passengers in front of him, followed the crowd out along the corridors, up the stairs and through the ticket barrier, then on to the bustling, noisy street. He wandered along the road, past the recently refurbished statue of Eros, carelessly bumping into oncoming pedestrians,
He still felt ill at ease, and wanted nothing more than to find a patch of grass - away from the throb of the crowds - to sit down and gather his thoughts. He felt the first pulsing waves of an oncoming migraine, and knew he had to find a seat somewhere out in the open and unwind. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. The closest seats, he recalled, were the benches around the statue of Shakespeare in the centre of Leicester Square Gardens. Not exactly peaceful, but it would do.
En route he was accosted briefly by two leathered and chained punks, their colourful, anachronistic plumage wavering in the wind, who pestered him for money. Daniel side-stepped them and pushed his way through the assembled masses at the half-price theatre ticket booth, at last finding solace on a bench beneath the cacophonous twitterings of a huge family of starlings, perched high in the branches above his head.
He sat quietly and watched the milling masses as they paraded before him: the elderly tourists trundling along, talking noisily, behaving badly; loud-mouthed youths with matted hair and enormous, aggressive-looking dogs, inadvertently terrorising elderly, grey-haired ladies with shopping bags and furled umbrellas; contented lovers wandering hand in hand, pausing briefly amid the bellowing chaos to embrace, fondle, kiss. Why is this all so sad? wondered Daniel as he watched the parade pass by.
Eventually he rose to his feet and, in need of cigarettes, set off to find a tobacconist. He walked back to Piccadilly Circus and, reminded of his original intentions, followed a crowd of youths through the heavy brass swing doors of an immense record store.
The shop was as crowded as ever. Daniel scanned the New Release racks, but found nothing of any particular interest. Daniel’s taste in music had, if anything, become more eclectic with each passing year. He still listened to rock, of course, and every so often would pick up on a new band that could cause the familiar ripple of excitement that he had first felt as a teenager. He also enjoyed the native sounds of many of the countries he had visited on his travels: he was particularly drawn to the cross-cutting rhythms and vocal delights of West African music, and the strange, oriental musings of Vietnam.
However, his tastes were slowly shifting. He had started to tune in to Classic FM at home, and was surprised to discover how often he found himself humming along to familiar tunes or tapping out the complex rhythms of the better-known pieces. Grieg, with his glorious, uplifting melodies, was a particular favourite, as was Vaughan Williams with his dense and deeply evocative pastoral works that somehow conjured up images of the rural idyll that had once been England.
Still, classical music remained something of a closed book to him, and so rather than lose himself in the innumerable titles in the classical section, he headed for the jazz and world-music department.
A sensual saxophone and piano duet oozed out of the PA system as he thumbed through the jazz racks for piano music, but nothing he saw attracted him. His fingers wandered aimlessly over the racks, his attention dissipating among the crowds of music-lovers. He knew what he was looking for, but as he had no idea what the music was called or who it was by, he did not know how to start searching for it.
The World Music section was huge. It was many months since he had spent any time in such an enormous record store, and he was overwhelmed by the huge selection of CDs on display. There seemed to be music from every corner of the world, and he was mildly amused to discover such oddities as ‘Mongolian Throat Music’ and ‘Folk Songs Played on the Eskimo Nose Flute’ among the collections of Ukrainian love songs and Indian ragas.
Unfortunately, intrigued as he was by these titles, it was music of an altogether different cast that interested him.
In the European section Daniel looked through a selection of Romanian folk music, a collection of Bavarian drinking songs, some popular Italian music, and came eventually to a few records ln the rack headed ‘Greece - Syrtaki’. Although he didn’t recognise anything on any of the albums, he was intrigued by the sleeve notes and titles, most of which were written in Greek. He studied each cover with considerable care, hoping - with rather greater optimism than was warranted under the circumstances - for a clue or a hint. He examined every inch of every disc, believing that some sign, word, symbol or picture would spring out from one of the covers and point the way.
But there was nothing. No signs, symbols or suggestions. Graffiti on the Underground and poster advertisements with their cryptic threats and intimations of menace zeroed in on him with the pinpoint accuracy of a computer-controlled smart missile, but the signs and symbols that he actively sought, the icons that might lead him back to his dream world, remained invisible. Deeply disappointed, he gave a deep, rather theatrical sigh, and began to make his way towards the exit.
What, he wondered, had he expected to find? A disc with a little sticker on it saying, ‘Dear Daniel, this is the music of your dream’? It was hopeless. lt was pathetic. What was the point of fixing on it like this? What did he honestly think he could do about it? He was becoming obsessive, and there was something reprehensible, even vaguely criminal, about it. It was like loitering with intent; here he was, hanging around the edges of his dream, waiting for an opportunity to break in again.
Daniel fought his way through the crowds of enthusiasts, a lone searcher in the midst of strangers. The discomfort and underlying fears that had kept him house-bound for much of the previous six months were starting to reassert themselves, and he found himself feeling more and more nervous. His palms were sweating again, and his breath was starting to break up, coming in short, sharp intakes that somehow failed to fulfil their intended function. An old and unpleasantly familiar sensation of suffocation started to overwhelm him and he began to panic. He had to get out of the store.
He started to push and struggle. All these damn people, what did they all want? Why were there so many of them? Where did they all come from? His heart was beating fast now, his breathing had become staccato and irregular, and he feared he might pass out. He made it to the swing doors just in time.
With the relief of a drowning man breaking the surface, he gulped in the rejuvenating draughts of cold London air, each breath loaded with the poisons and pollutants of a giant industrial city pounding away at full tilt. For a minute or more he stood on the pavement, near the main entrance, doing deep-breathing exercises like a man who has been starved of fresh air for a fortnight, until the combination of excess oxygen and petrol fumes made his head swim.
It was then, his head still reeling, that he saw her. She emerged from the throng of bodies exiting Piccadilly Underground station and Daniel felt his heart leap in his chest as if it had been wired with explosives and detonated by some emotional terrorist, skilled at creating maximum distress and disturbance. Her hair was a little longer, her complexion a little darker, but there was no doubt in his mind. It was Alex.
Alex!’ he yelled as he made a dash towards her. It was a miracle, a miracle he hadn’t dared pray for: she was alive, alive and well, alive and well and...
He was only two or three yards away from her when he realised his mistake. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the stranger as she walked past, oblivious of the gawking man who had almost bumped into her. Daniel could feel the tears accumulating in the corners of his eyes, and even though he understood that Piccadilly Circus on a busy summer’s afternoon was no place to break down, he could not stem the flow of tears nor prevent a howl of despair issuing from his tonnented soul. A few people stared at him, some with sympathy others m
erely out of curiosity.
Not wanting to embarrass himself further Daniel went down the stairs into the Underground, boarded the first northbound train and headed for home. The train trundled along the darkened passageways that bored through the London subsoil, turning the capital’s foundation into a hole-ridden hollow, like a giant slab of Gruyere.
The incident at Piccadilly Circus had unsettled Daniel. It was precisely because of the possibility of such events that he had sought solace, safety and solitude in the confines of his own home, hiding from the Big Wide World and all that it threatened. Because if there was one thing clear in the morass of confusing signs and signals that obsessed him, it was that the world did not forgive, did not forget, and would take any and every opportunity to remind him of his past misdeeds and misdemeanours. Why else was he now haunted by ghosts and chimerical apparitions?
Not that he had done anything really bad, really evil; certainly nothing that required this level of punishment. Hadn’t he suffered enough? Weren’t his physical injuries, the disabilities that still prevented him from returning to work, the mental torment that he had to endure... weren’t they enough? Hadn’t he done his penance?
Poor Alex, thought Daniel as he emerged from the Underground station at Manor House, and started to walk home.
Poor me.
He had been walking for only a few minutes when a peculiar sensation came over him; a discontinuity of some kind, like déja vu only not as clear or well-defined. He had, of course, walked that road before - the section of Green Lanes that ran alongside Finsbury Park - a hundred times or more, so a sense of familiarity would not have been strange or alarming. It was not the sights of the street that disturbed him, but an altogether less prosaic vision.
For a split second as he looked down the road, all the shops and cars and buses and people, all the noise and tumult and smog and stench disappeared, and he was once more walking along the sandy beach of his dream. So realistic was the vision, so complete in detail, that had he not known better he would have sworn that, for a split second, he had been transported to another place, another time.
The vision, which was enchanting and disruptive in equal measure, stopped him in his tracks. This can’t be happening, he thought to himself: it just can’t be. It was one thing to see visions of paradise in one’s dreams, but to conjure up such Arcadian scenarios while wandering down a busy north London thoroughfare was beyond a joke.
And then he heard it, playing faintly in the background, almost drowned by the noise of the passing traffic: the music of his dream. Only the source of the music was neither ethereal nor other-worldly; it was emanating from the open doorway of Aphroditi, a music shop, just a few yards ahead of him.
A sign in the shop’s window proclaimed it to be the biggest Greek music store outside Athens. Daniel had passed it on endless occasions and not once had it ever occurred to him to go inside. Even though he had lived in this overwhelmingly Cypriot community for years, and even though he knew his local greengrocer, off-licence, dry-cleaners and newsagent well, there were certain establishments that he still felt were off-limits to him.
Green Lanes was littered with Greek or Turkish men’s clubs that were as foreign to him here in his own neighbourhood as they would have been in Cyprus. And while Aphroditi was nothing more exotic than a music and record store, like many of the clubs, with their indecipherable signs and air of exclusivity, he had never felt bold enough to enter.
He took a few steps towards the door and was both surprised and thrilled to hear the strains of the bouzouki become louder; for a moment he had thought it might be some sort of musical hallucination, the aural equivalent of his disturbing encounter with Alex’s doppelganger earlier that day. But as he entered through the half-opened door, there could be no doubting that this time the experience was real, for the music spluttered and crackled from the ageing loudspeakers on the counter, and echoed all around.
Daniel felt transported. He wanted to close his eyes and allow himself to be whisked back to Atheenaton, to the village of his dream, but feared he might faint or collapse or do something equally embarrassing. Instead he took a few moments to look around and, once he had assured himself that there was nothing either dangerous or threatening about the environment, wandered over to the racks of records that stood in great banks along the walls and beneath the windows, and started to thumb through them.
This was more like it, he thought, recalling the frustrating experience of earlier that day when he had had to flick through hundreds of those nasty plastic CD cases, squinting at their tiny covers to try and make sense ofthe titles and names. Here it was a different matter altogether. Clearly Greece was still a few years behind in its embracing of the digital format, and to Daniel’s great delight the majority of the music in the shop came in the form of the now outmoded vinyl LP.
Even though he had no idea what he was looking at, Daniel derived a warm, comforting sensation from flicking through the racks of twelve-inch covers with their big, bright photographs and strong, clear typography. It reminded him of his youth and of the days spent with his friends rummaging through the racks of the second-hand record stores in Notting Hill Gate and Ladbroke Grove, searching for that elusive Yes album or Genesis single.
It was an odd sort of shop, part record store, part news-agent and grocery store, and though it had an extensive selection of Greek-looking album covers stacked in the racks, it did not, in truth, look as if it could possibly stock the biggest collection of Greek records in the country. Still, Daniel did not dwell long on this. Neither did he prolong his search of the record sleeves. He knew exactly what he wanted.
The gentle, lilting bouzouki was still playing, joined now by the deep, mellifluous tones of a baritone, singing in what could only be Greek. It was a wonderful combination, and even though Daniel had no idea what the man was singing about, he felt a delightful tingling at the back of his neck - the same sensation he used to have as a teenager when he listened to his favourite bands. Daniel stood quietly and listened, allowing the music to flow over him as if he were standing beneath a waterfall of sound. That the music was beautiful was beyond dispute, but there was also something sad, heart-achingly mournful about that voice.
When the song came to an end Daniel could barely stand the silence, which entered him like a vast, empty hunger, and he was greatly relieved when the resonant sounds of a bouzouki playing the opening refrain of the next track swelled from the speakers and filled the air around him.
The store was deserted. There was no one behind the counter, and Daniel could not hear anyone moving around in the back of the shop. He walked to the counter and peered into the gloom. Nothing. The area behind the counter was filled with shelves, stacked floor to ceiling with records. To one side was the antiquated stereo system; the record was still playing, but it was too far away for Daniel to be able to see the label.
On top of the counter, however, lay an empty record sleeve. Daniel picked it up and examined it. The front cover was a collage of old photographs and postcards. The photographs were mostly the sort of ancient family snapshots that one could find in the bottom drawers and attics of a million homes the world over, many of them in sepia, others cracked and faded with no attempt to disguise or retouch them. The postcards were, if anything, more interesting: turn-of-the-century views of the Acropolis and period impressions of other famous Greek sites. Together they made a pleasing composition.
There was nothing written in English on either the front or the back cover, and Daniel could not decipher any of the strange Greek letters that made up the titles. But as his eyes scanned the foreign symbols he felt again the momentary faintness that had caught him off-balance outside, and experienced the strange but unmistakable sensation that he was standing on a beach in the bright sunshine with the sweat dripping from his forehead. He could even, for a split second, feel the sand between his toes.
The sensation disappeared as swiftly as it had arrived, leaving Daniel a little dazed. He reached ou
t to the counter and steadied himself, then took several deep breaths. As he was recovering his balance, he saw someone move in the back of the shop. A moment later a young man with black hair and several days’ worth of stubble emerged from the darkness, clutching a stack of records which he placed carefully on the counter. He smiled at Daniel and then nodded towards the cover.
‘Mitropanos. Can’t beat him, eh?’
‘Huh?’
‘Dmitri Mitropanos; the boss!’
Daniel smiled and nodded swiftly. ‘Right,’ he said, still not fully understanding what the assistant was saying, then handed the cover to him. ‘I’ll take it.’
Once home, Daniel slipped the album carefully out of its cover and placed it on the turntable. He turned on the amplifier, cranked up the volume, and waited for music.
Music arrived.
Daniel could hardly believe the clarity of sound that emanated from the loudspeakers on either side of the bay window. In the record store - and in his dreams - each time he heard the music it was being played on an old record-player, the sort that could not possibly do justice to music of such finesse and delicacy. But here, on his own hi-fi, the music came into its own. The sound of the bouzouki, full and resonant, seemed to spring from the loudspeakers with an almost hyper-real intensity, each note ringing with the clarity of a struck wineglass; it was, quite simply, sublime. And when the vocalist began to sing in hid deep, melancholy voice, he imbued words that remained mysterious with a quiet, unmistakable force that made their translation - for the time being, at least - unnecessary.
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