Thus Elfish's last remaining friends walked out of her life, leaving her with only a depressed brother and a band of people she had lied to for her own purposes.
“Well, fuck them,” muttered Elfish, and proceeded to wipe out her next opponent on the pool table, putting five balls down from her first break and finishing the game off on her next visit to the table.
In the pub people looked surreptitiously at her as she played.
“That is Elfish,” whispered one person to another. “The woman who is so obsessed with naming her band Queen Mab that she is going to recite forty-three lines of Shakespeare on stage before Mo's gig on Saturday.”
Everyone who knew Elfish informed everyone who did not that it seemed very unlikely that she could manage it, and interest in the whole proceedings continued to grow at an alarming rate. Complete strangers would stop Elfish to ask her about it. Unable to think quite what to say, Elfish would merely grunt at them. If they persisted with their questioning she would tell them brusquely to mind their own business. This was enough to silence most people but Elfish's aggressive manner made no impression on Mo and his friends. They
laughed at her quite openly. Elfish no longer felt entirely comfortable in this pub although she had been coming here for some years. There were too many people whom she suspected of mocking her and looking forward to her downfall.
She would not stop coming though, even though it might mean standing by herself now that Tula and Lizzy would no longer come drinking with her. To abandon her usual haunts would mean accepting a defeat, which she would not do.
It was not pleasant drinking on her own, however. Even Aran would be some company but he would not come with her to this bar. As well as being too depressed to leave the house, he was worried that he might run into his old girlfriend, an event which he said would be too much for him to cope with.
forty-five
JOHN MACKIE SAT alone in his shop. There were no customers. He was watching a small television which rested on a chair behind the counter. Business was still bad but he was rather more cheerful than he had been.
This was due to Elfish. In the past few days she and May had been calling in constantly for leads, plectrums, a tuner, two fuzz-boxes, a microphone, a sustain pedal and various other bits and pieces they needed for their band. Everything they bought was the cheapest there was and even then part of the cost had to be put on to Elfish's bill but John Mackie found that he did not mind. He had become infected with Elfish's enthusiasm. It felt good that a woman who reminded him of his sister was coming into his shop, talking about her plans and generally being positive. Her visits gave him something to look forward to. Extending her credit was undoubtedly poor business practice, but as things were so bad it made little difference and it brought him pleasure.
When she called in they would talk about what she required for the gig at the weekend and though he was not fully conversant with Elfish's overwhelming need to call her band Queen Mab, John Mackie was aware of the gig's importance to Elfish. He was willing
to do what he could to help. The enthusiasm that this generated inside him was the first that he could remember for many years. Arriving at his shop that morning he had felt positively cheerful as he gave a little money to the homeless beggar who huddled in his doorway. The pavement outside John Mackie's shop was a popular place for homeless beggars. John Mackie took his Christian charity seriously, and was sorry for them, and gave them money.
The television news switched to a report from Sudan.
“Here the famine is becoming more serious every day,” said a reporter, as the screen showed bodies thin beyond belief stumbling hopelessly in search of nourishment.
These pictures troubled him, and he resolved to donate money tomorrow to the famine relief fund at his church.
Aisha was watching the same programme while she painted the backdrop. “How terrible,” she said, but what she really thought was, they could all die if only my boyfriend Mory would come back, and she carried on painting to block it out of her memory.
Aran too was watching the news.
“How terrible,” he muttered, but what he really thought was much the same as Aisha. He switched off the TV and studied his cigarette cards to take his mind off his ex-girlfriend.
He frowned. Despite buying and smoking an immense amount of cigarettes he had not yet collected all twenty cards. He was stuck on eighteen. He had more than one of each of these. Of some of them he had as many as four. Yet his collection contained not a single example of either number three or number twenty.
“There is definitely something funny going on here,” he mumbled. “I don't believe the company is distributing the cards fairly.”
Various schemes whereby the cigarette company could cheat its customers and deny them their five pounds' reward floated through
his head. There might not be any cards numbered three and twenty. This was a diabolical thought and brought Aran close to despair.
Musing further on this, though, he rejected it eventually as too risky for the company. If they did not print up any of one card then someone might notice. A disgruntled employee might talk to the newspapers. Word would leak out and the Serious Fraud Office would investigate. Altogether too dangerous for the board of directors.
They might, of course, only print up a tiny number of certain cards. It could be that there was only one number three in the whole country and it had been sent to Glasgow. That seemed quite likely, and Aran again felt desolate. Even more fiendishly, the company might be printing up an equal number of each card but ensuring the cigarette packets containing certain cards were sent only to carefully controlled locations. Every single card number twenty might at this minute be in a warehouse on the Orkney Islands, awaiting distribution to only one local tobacconist. Orkney Islanders, smoking away keenly to claim their reward, might find that every card in their collection was number twenty. And what legal redress would a person in London have against the company? None whatsoever. They did not say anywhere in their advertising that the cards were sent evenly around the country. Aran could now see clearly that the whole thing was a plot, fixed from start to finish.
“It's no use,” he sighed. “These companies are too powerful. There is no way of winning against them.”
Elfish appeared, looking extremely dirty and demanding a poem. To her surprise, Aran had one ready.
“From Milton's âL'Allegro,'” he told her. “Have I ever told you the story of Milton's life? He wasâ”
“Shut up and give me the poem,” ordered Elfish, and held out her hand.
Till the livelong daylight fail,
Then to the spicy nut-brown ale,
With stories told of many a feat;
How fairy Mab the junkets eat;
“What's a junket?” asked Elfish. “Never mind, don't tell me. This is fine. It will do to counter the painting of Ben Jonson's Mab. I'll go and put it through Mo's door right away.”
forty-six
THE STORM ABATED but there was no respite for the exhausted occupants of the raft. The edge of the world was now in clear sight and the noise of the ocean falling away into the void rolled over them like thunder. With their situation growing ever more hopeless they began to bicker.
“Haven't you fixed the rudder yet?” complained Cleopatra.
“I'm doing my best,” retorted Botticelli sharply.
“Well, it doesn't seem to be having much effect.”
“I'm a painter, not an engineer.”
“I'm sure Leonardo could have done a better job,” said Cleopatra.
“So who are you to criticise?” demanded Botticelli. “All you do is strut around giving orders. I haven't seen you actually working yet. And this from a woman who lost a whole empire just because she picked the wrong Roman.”
“Mark Antony was not the wrong Roman,” retorted Cleopatra. “We were just unfortunate to lose the battle of Actium.”
Bomber Harris, interested in this, started a conversation about wartime tactics through the ages but he was interrupted by Red Sonja.
“Shut up and keep working. It won't be long till the gryphons come back.”
“Don't you tell me to shut up, you ignorant barbarian. I didn't notice you having any notable success when you tried to mend the sail.”
“Stop bickering,” said Ben Jonson, who was trying to nail the mast together. “We'll only get out of this situation if we all work together.”
He looked pointedly at Mick Ronson, who still sat idly in the middle of the raft.
“I refuse to work any more,” said the musician. “There's no point. We can't win. I'm going over the edge of the world strumming my guitar.”
He launched into the solo from “Moonage Daydream,” a song he had recorded while playing with David Bowie in 1972. This solo was full of long, high, lingering notes, building upon each other to beautiful effect.
“Ship ahoy!” screamed Cleopatra, and everybody looked in alarm, assuming it was some new enemy come to torment them.
“I recognise that ship,” cried Pericles, great statesman of Athens. “It's Queen Artemisia.”
He drew his sword, preparing to repel boarders, but it soon became clear that Artemisia was not going to attack. Her ship sailed on by, back towards the far distant shore.
Aran was programming the task for the next level. The raft had to somehow attach itself to Queen Artemisia's trireme. If they could do this they would be towed all the way back to safety. When the occupants of the raft realised this they made frantic efforts to make ropes from whatever material they had available, fixing Red Sonja's sword to the end as a grappling hook. They paddled frantically after the ship while Sonja prepared to cast the line.
Naturally it was hopeless. There was no way for the raft actually to come close enough to make the connection.
“You Failed,” said the caption on the screen, after Sonja's repeated attempts to reach Artemisia's ship with her grappling hook all fell short. “You are now plunged into the next level, right at the Edge of the World.”
forty-seven
MO'S LONG HAIR lay over his face and the carpet and Shonen sat over Mo, fucking him by the light of the television. She did this quite slowly. Her movements were noticeably more relaxed than normal.
Mo, who had been drinking, lay passively for a long time as Shonen rocked back and forth on top of him.
After a while he seemed to gather up his energy and reached up to take hold of her small breasts before dragging his body into a sitting position so that Shonen was kneeling on his lap and they kissed.
Mo had had no hesitation in asking Shonen to sleep with him towards the end of his first visit. Shonen had agreed because although she rarely had sex and thought about it seldom, there was something about Mo which she found attractive. Possibly it was the fact that he did not really care if she was alive or dead. More than one person had found that attractive about Mo, including Elfish. Another attraction was that he would leave immediately afterwards without bothering her for details of her personal life.
Shonen slid her hand between their bodies to grip Mo's penis lightly between two fingers as it entered her. Mo wrapped his arms round Shonen and slid his finger up her anus. Locked together, they rocked gently backwards and forwards in the dim light of the television.
When Mo was close to orgasm he brusquely shoved Shonen off his lap and on to her back and fucked her as hard as he could till he came, then lay momentarily on top of her, dripping with sweat.
He left soon afterwards. Shonen had not come, which was frustrating. Then again, sex had taken up more than an hour during which time she had had no desire to eat or vomit.
Later, however, she felt anxious lest Elfish should find out she had been having sex with Mo. Shonen knew that Elfish would not like this and she did not want to offend her.
Elfish was in her thoughts because Mo had questioned her about Elfish's progress with the speech. He had intimated that Shonen was unwise to help her. Shonen had explained to Mo that Elfish was doing her a favour in return although when she explained what it was Mo snorted and said that Elfish was certainly lying because no theatrical fund-raiser lived anywhere near her and anyway Elfish was a born liar.
Shonen did not believe Mo. She trusted in Elfish's efforts to aid her. Her physical theatre group was too important for her not to believe in Elfish. Even as Mo's semen was still trickling out of her body she was back at her sponsorship documents, and giving some thought to their next production.
For his part Mo had gained the impression that Elfish was close to success. He resolved to do something about it.
forty-eight
THE PROJECTED GIG was on Saturday and by Wednesday Elfish was an ugly sight. Unwashed for a long time, a time which included not enough sleep and too much to drink, her face was grimy, her body stank, her clothes stuck to her frame and her hair was dusty in front of her eyes.
As an aid to learning the speech Shonen had drawn it up for her in different-coloured inks, hoping in this way to make Elfish word associate with the different colours. She had made some progress and was now on line fifteen:
Her chariot is an empty hazelnut
It was an immense effort. It seemed like the hardest thing she had ever done.
Wearying of it, Elfish dropped the speech on the floor and picked up her guitar. She plugged it into the amplifier. No sound emerged. This was not unusual. With the cheap equipment Elfish used it was a rare occasion when her guitar worked first time.
She fiddled with the lead till it came to life with a small crackle, kicked her fuzzbox on and played to herself, not caring that the
noise would disturb the rest of the household. Tomorrow she would go back to the shop and beg for some better guitar leads.