by David Almond
“What are you?” I ask, in a pause between sweet notes.
“I GUARD THE DEAD. I LET THEM THROUGH. I KEEP THEM DEAD. AND NOBODY BUT THE DEAD CAN PASS.”
I sing.
I hear the sighing in its voice.
I feel its muscles starting to relax.
“Let me through,” I whisper.
“NA!”
“Please let me through.”
“NO. OH, BLIDDY NO.”
I sing. I sing. It sighs. It sighs.
At last the jaws relax. It sleeps. It gently snores. I wade on, past the beast, through the thigh-deep water, to the darkest dark beyond. And step up to the dry land beyond. Just bare rock. Just darkness that might go on forever and forever. I walk into it, singing.
There are sounds down here apart from mine, but oh so frail, so distant, as if from a universe away. Who would have thought that the space beneath the city in the North could be so immense?
“Ella,” I whisper.
“Ella!” I call.
“TURN BACK, SINGER,”
comes the whisper.
“Ella!”
“I SAID TURN BACK.”
The woman’s voice, close by, so close it could be coming from right inside my ear.
“WHO ARE YOU?” it says again, like the hoot of an owl in a far-flung night.
“My name is Orpheus,” I sing.
“ORPHEUS, GO HOME.”
Then darkness, and silence. I listen, I carry on. Then another whisper, a different, sharper voice.
“SING YER TALE FOR US, ORPHEUS.”
And another.
“SING IT OUT, LAD. WE’RE LISTENIN’.”
So I start to sing the tale but I’ve hardly started when there’s laughter in the darkness all around.
“STUPID BLIDDY ORPHEUS,”
something whispers.
Then a stream of mocking voices.
“STUPID BLIDDY CRACKPOT SINGER.”
“THERE’S NAE SUCH THINGS AS TALES DOON HERE.”
“THERE’S JUST THE ENDS OF TALES.”
“THE TAILS OF TALES.”
“AND ALL THE ENDS IS JUST THE SAME.”
“SO ALL TOGETHER NOW!”
“AH, ONE TWO THREE FOUR!”
“AND THEN SHE DIED AND THEN SHE DIED AND THEN!
AND THEN SHE DIED AND THEN SHE DIED AND THEN!
AND THEN SHE BLIDDY DIED AND BLIDDY DIED!”
“THE END! THE E-E-E-E-E-E END!”
“THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END.
THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END.
THE END THE END THE END THE END THE END.
AND THAT’S THE BLIDDY END OF BLIDDY THAT!”
“AHA-AHA-AHA-AHA-HAHA
AHA-AHA-AHA-AHBLIDDYHA!”
Take no notice, Orpheus. Sing her name. Let them cackle all around.
“ELLA!”
“SING IT AGAIN!” they laugh and call.
But then they fade. they fade.they fade.they fade.
I walk on into the deepest darkness until I can walk no more,
can sing no more.
I stand alone.
I’m beyond the shuffling dead, the beasts, beyond the cackling voices.
An aeon, or a minute, passes.
There is nothing.
Not a movement, not a sound.
Nothing at all.
No way forward, no way back.
No way to howl and yell and gnash my teeth and yell out, “Please give her back to me!”
Nothing.
Nowt.
Bugger all.
An age passes, or a microsecond.
“WELL DONE, ORPHEUS.”
It’s the woman’s whisper once again, soft, soft, so soft and sweet it’s hardly there at all. A sound like the sound made by the finest string of the lyre.
She’s so close that if I knew how to reach out and how to touch she’d be right beside me.
“YOU HAVE SUNG YOUR WAY SO FAR,” she says.
“Who are you?”
I hear her smile.
“LONG AGO YOU WOULD HAVE KNOWN ME.”
“AND ME AS WELL.”
It’s another voice, a man’s. And his is the sound made by the heaviest string of the lyre.
“Who are you?” I ask again.
I hear him smile.
“YOU’VE SUNG YOUR WAY INTO THE NOTHING AT THE HEART OF EVERYTHING,” he says.
“Who are you?”
They speak the harmony made by the deepest and the sweetest strings.
“WE ARE DEATH, ORPHEUS,” they say.
“YOU HAVE REACHED US,” they say.
“AND WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW?” they say.
What can I do? I lift the lyre into the nothingness. I send its tune and my voice into the void.
I sing the world above. I sing the sun and the earth and the sea. I sing Northumberland, Bamburgh Beach, waves rolling onto shining sand. I sing the Farnes stretching towards the horizon. I sing rolling porpoises, leaping dolphins, hooting seals, puffins that dash by in coloured flights, terns that hover and dance in the shimmering air. Crabs and anemones and little quick fish that seem to glow. Kelp and bladderwrack and sea snails and urchins. The damp sand and the dry sand and the line of jetsam in between. The rocks and rockpools. The breeze that whispers in the marram grass and whips up spray from the waves. I sing the snake and the spider and the scrabbling mouse. I sing yelling children plunging through surf. I sing running dogs. I sing the castles children build in sand, the words they write in it, the shrines they build with rocks and kelp. The distant Cheviots, the drifting clouds, the heavenly blue of sky. I sing young people singing. I sing their astonishment at living in such a place. I sing them praising the world in all its forms. I sing the falling sun, dusk and darkness coming on, blue sky yellowing, orangeing, reddening. The moments when sea merges with sky and all seems held in air, floating. The first few stars and a sickle moon, and the intensifying beauty of the night. The endless glittering lights that stretch forever into the gulfs of space and time above this little beach. I sing the glow of gold above the city, the turning lighthouse light, the crackle and flames of the fire, the smell of sausages cooking, tomatoes simmering. I sing the taste of all these things, the taste of wine and of clear cool water and salt. I sing the taste of fruit as it fizzes to life on the tongue. And the feel of the air against the skin, the grains of sea salt on it, the grains of sand and the tingle of the day’s sun on it. I sing murmuring, whispering outbursts of laughter and affection. I sing young people loving by their fires and in their tents and in the soft folds of the dunes. I sing old people walking hand-in-hand. I sing the world. I sing the world. I sing the world. I sing
Ella,
Ella,
Ella Grey.
“OH, ORPHEUS,” whispers Death in harmony with itself.
“Let me take her back to that,” I sing.
Their silence lasts a minute, a day, a month, a year, an age.
I sing again.
I sing again.
Life,
I sing.
Light,
I sing.
“SHE CAME HOME TO US, ORPHEUS.” The woman.
“WE SENT HER OUT AND WELCOMED HER BACK.” The man.
“AS WE DO WITH ALL OUR CHILDREN.”
“WE ALWAYS LOVED HER, ORPHEUS.”
“WE WAITED FOR HER ALL THESE YEARS.”
“And I!” I cry. “I loved her and love her still and all I ask is a little more of time with her.”
Sighs from both of them:
impossibly sweet, impossibly deep.
“Then she will be yours again, for all eternity, Orpheus.”
Together, the woman and the man: “YES.”
Together, in harmony: “ELLA! ELLA!”
I sing with them,
my note perfectly balanced between theirs.
The three-voiced chord sings out.
“Ella!”
“YES!” gasps Death. “SHE HEARS, ORPHEUS. AND SHE COMES.”
I’
m mad to see. Death restrains me.
“YOU MUST NOT LOSE HER AGAIN, ORPHEUS.” The man.
“YOU CANNOT SEE HER HERE IN DEATH.” The woman.
“YOU MUST LEAD HER OUT TOWARDS THE LIGHT AND LIFE.”
“THEN SHE WILL BE YOURS AGAIN.”
“Ella!” I call.
Then her voice, from the nothingness, the darkness.
“Orpheus!”
Her voice!
“Orpheus!
Orpheus!”
“DON’T LOOK.” The man.
“SHE WILL FOLLOW YOU,” says Death, in harmony with itself.
“BUT YOU CANNOT TURN. YOU MUST NOT SEE HER UNTIL YOU HAVE LED HER OUT INTO THE WORLD AGAIN.”
I hesitate.
“YOU HESITATE?” says Death.
“No.”
“GO NOW.”
I walk.
“LEAD HER TO THE LIGHT, ORPHEUS. WALK, WADE, SING. TRUST DEATH. SHE WILL BE WITH YOU, ORPHEUS. DON’T LOOK BACK.”
“Thank you,” I sing.
“NO THANKS UNTIL THE JOURNEY’S DONE. GO NOW.”
I walk away. I wade into the knee-deep pool, and I hear another wading close behind.
“Ella? It’s you?”
And her voice!
“Yes, Orpheus. I’m with you.”
I yearn to see her, to stride hand-in-hand with her.
“Don’t turn,”
she whispers, so close behind.
We pass the beast, which still lies stunned by the beauty of the song.
“Death allows this,” I whisper as I pass. “Death says let us through.”
The beast growls regretfully. I hear Ella wading past it. We step up onto rock. The cackling voices here are stilled. Just cracked breathing, meaningless vindictive hisses and snorts.
“Ella?” I sing.
“Yes, Orpheus. Yes.”
We walk against the endless flow of the subservient shades of the dead.
We pass the reluctant ones, those who haven’t yet accepted the inevitability of their fate.
I play music that guides our feet in easy regular rhythms towards the light. One step then another, one step then another, one note then another.
“Oh, poor children!”
I hear Ella sigh, as we pass the little bairns.
“No good,” I call back to her. “Smile at them and pity them, but keep on moving on.”
Faint glimmerings of light now. Or no.
Am I just deceived by what I most desire?
“Ella!”
“Yes, Orpheus. I’m here.”
“Won’t it be wonderful?”
“Yes! I’ll leave school.”
“Will you?”
“And I’ll leave the Greys. I’m old enough. Just let them try to stop me.”
“We’ll travel together, man and wife.”
“Far and wide. Orpheus and Ella.”
“Ella and Orpheus.”
“We’ll make children!”
“Children?”
“Yes! Just imagine that!
The children of Orpheus and Ella!”
“Yes.”
“No, Orpheus! Don’t look back!”
I don’t. I quicken the rhythms and our steps. I move so much more quickly than when I entered. I know the way to life through these turning, twisting, upward-mounting tunnels. Above us is the city, the civilized world. How long has it been asleep? How long have I been away? A microsecond, a million years? Up there, are they waking from a single sleep, or has a new age come, has the city disappeared, has the whole world changed? Has the whole world gone?
Yes, that is light somewhere up ahead.
it.
towards
climb
The tunnels
I hurry, hurry.
“Too fast?” I ask her.
“No, Orpheus. Oh, look, the light!”
We pass the place of the silly monsters.
I play as I pass them,
turn their noises into song again.
“BOOOOO!
HISSSSS.
NANANANA!”
Ella giggles and joins in.
“I know who you are!”
she laughs. “I used to see you when I was a frightened little lass! Remember me and Claire looking in at you?
Boo!”
I turn my steps into a dance. I let the music twist and bend and I let my body sway. We’re dancing homeward in the Ouseburn. The rats are back to scuttle at my feet. I’ve sung Ella out of Death! I’m dancing Love back home again!
We’re closer,
closer to the light.
And there are the gates. It’s morning just beyond them. The water hums through the gates, through me, through Ella Grey.
“Hurry!” I call.
“Faster!”
“Don’t look back.”
I reach the gates. I grab them and laugh.
“Separate!” I sing. “Open, locks! Slide, you bliddy bolts!”
I sing and sing at them.
“Open up and let us out!”
Ella waits, so close behind.
“Oh, let us out!”
she calls.
And Oh! She touches me.
It’s just
the
gentlest
of gentle
touches on my shoulder.
And how could anybody not turn at that?
How could anybody not look back from a locked gate to check they weren’t deceived, that their one true love was there?
Who could have resisted?
Of course it’s bliddy her. Of course it is.
And even as I see it’s her and even as we reach towards each other at last, as our eyes meet in desolate joy, she’s already going back. And she’s already gone. And I’ve been flung out, and I’m right back where I started, on the wrong side of the gates. And there’s just the empty tunnels leading back to Death, the humming of the metal bars, the chinking of the bolts and locks, the scrabbling rats around my feet, the sunshine pouring down on me and darkness deepening everywhere.
Oh, bliddy stupid Orpheus.
Of course Ella Grey was bliddy there.
FOUR
Take off the mask.
Put it down.
Its job is done.
Be Claire again.
Desolate Claire Wilkinson.
Ella almost came.
She was almost here again.
But Orpheus looked back.
Thud.
FIVE
He told me his story that morning when I found him lying outside the gates, as the Ouseburn flowed and the bars rattled and hummed and the light intensified all over Tyneside. He never once asked if I believed. As he approached the end of it, his eyes were shifting, looking towards the cluttered horizon of the city and the austere horizon of the sea. He wanted to be away. I thought of questions to detain him but most of them were useless stupid things.
“She was lovely?” I asked him. “Like she was in life?”
“Yes,” he said.
I looked towards the gates and imagined her there at the edge of the light. I imagined standing at the gates myself and calling her and calling her.
“If I hadn’t handed you the phone that day,” I said. “If I hadn’t…?”
He shook his head.
“Oh, Claire. There’s no way to talk about it now.”
“You could come home with me,” I said. “We could have some breakfast…We could…”
He just smiled, lowered his eyes.
“Do ye really think so, Claire?”
“What will you do?”
“I’ll wander. I’ll sing. What else can I do?”
“Will I see you again?”
“Maybe ye’ll hear me.”
We stared at each other, useless, desolate. And he breathed deeply in and then breathed out again.
“Thank you,” he softly said.
“For what?”
“For helping me to find her a second time.”
He sang his l
ast lament, so bleak, so sad, so beautiful, and it seemed the whole world wept, including me.
“Without you,” he told me, “I would never have even known that she existed.”
Then he hugged me, and he left. Climbed up the opposite bank with the water of the Ouseburn dripping from him. Didn’t look back. Stood for an instant silhouetted against the shimmering sky, then turned northwards and was gone.
ONE
He busked in Alnwick at the summer fair. He stood waist-deep in the sea at Lindisfarne, surrounded by seals, and sang at the sky. He roamed like a tramp in the Cheviots. He begged for bread at caravan sites, holiday cottages, farmhouses. He was holed up in a ring of teepees with hippies in the Simonside Hills. He skulked in a ruined bastle at Wooler’s far end. His songs were more lovely than ever. They ached with sadness and longing, they were songs to break the heart. Trees hung down their branches, drizzle fell, cows and sheep were seen to cry. No, the truth was that the singer had turned beastly. He was losing human form. He crawled on all fours, and yelled out drink- and drug-fuelled animal howls and yaps and yelps. All living things recoiled from him.
Or he was further afield. In Greece itself, where he sang on the steps of the Parthenon and on the slow-moving ferries to the islands. He sang on the beaches of Crete. He sang in Rome, on the Spanish Steps, and in the hills of Tuscany where he followed in the footsteps of St. Francis. He worked as a lounge singer on a cruise liner in the Baltic. He was with a band in New York writing an album of songs. He was rehearsing Monteverdi at La Scala. He was about to appear on Britain’s Got bliddy Talent. He was…
All was rumour. Nothing was true. The tales were tittle-tattle for time-wasters, gossip-mongers, little bairns. They blew with the wind, fell with the rain, were sung by blackbirds, cawed by crows, squealed by silly gulls.
