Shalott

Skin and Bones

Droplets trickle down the windscreen like leaking stars, and I turn to look at you.
It was like somebody pressed 'pause'. But only on you.
You are silent and still, yet the watery stars behind you are not, and I don't know how to get you to become part of this world again.

Shirley wrote the words slowly on the inside lip of a Rizla packet; only tiny, minute sentences would fit.  It was like the imagery from a nightmare, only never dreamt; it was something her mind conjured up readily when she was awake.

This was how her brain had packaged Rory's passing, like some kind of freakish-looking GIF idly shared on Facebook.

God, it was hard being here... at this venue. She closed her eyes, letting two charcoled lids fall over porcelain cheeks.

She had trailed along on this tour, like a paper boat on a stream... knowing that at some point they would end up at this place.

She felt like a complete weirdo for coming. Why hadn't she just resisted, headed back to London...Or even Hastings - gone to see her family? She hadn't been to see them in ages, she missed them. It was as though she had actually wanted to come here. Come here and be okay. But now that she sat on these old upholstered stools, she wished she'd seen sense.

This room was the same as before; that same musty, boozy smell hung in the air, just identical to when they used to come here - two kids in love. The rest of the world had changed but this venue had not moved on one bit.

The music pounded from the stage, but Shirley remained lost in her thoughts. Now she took out a rizla and turned her pen to its delicate surface.

A hand squeezed her shoulder and she paused, turning her neck to the side, and glancing at the arm that made contact with her.

It was a man's arm; one she knew only too well. Tattoos of ladybirds crawled up his forearm and on his third finger was a silver engraved band.

Shirley might usually have lent her head onto her husband's hand but tonight she feared if she did so, he might feel the cool smudge of a tear.

"Something wrong, hun?" he said.

She shook her head, now stuffing tobacco into the rizla. "Nothing," she replied, allowing her hair to fall over her face.  He brushed it away with his other hand and so she furrowed her brow, as though concentrating deeply on her rolling efforts.

Tommy's grip relaxed now. "That fucktard finally paid me," he said, his hand now picking up my tobacco packet to make his own roll-up.

Shirley's mood lifted slightly, "Seriously?" she said, looking up now. "So we can actually move into our house?"

He raised an eyebrow, stuffing the rollup into his shirt pocket. "Looks like it," he said. She caught a twinkle in his slanted grey-green eyes, but he turned and scooped up his Gretch from its stand.

"I'm going on now," he said, walking to the dressing room door, his guitar clutched in one hand. He kicked it open. "Coming?"

"Yeah," said Shirley, climbing down from her stall. "Yeah..."

She yanked her skirt down over ripped tights, picked up her tobacco packet, and followed him out of the room.  

Tommy's band were waiting for him by the stage entrance, and Shirley watched them as she approached. She had stood there once, by those steps with Rory.

That's right. They had been giggling about the promoter, he had been trying to chat them up earlier but had been stuck by a coughing fit mid-flow. Shirley had had tears of laughter in her eyes but they had stopped when they heard their band's name being called on stage. Rory had put her arms around her waist, and planted a kiss on her lips, before pulling her hand up the stairs and onto the stage. Shirley remembered walking on in a love-daze. And it was their best gig yet.

As painful and inappropriate as it may be, there was something she enjoyed about remembering her here... it made it all seem real again. So many years had passed and it was all just a memory now... but the smell and the scenery made it all the more tangible. It gave the ghost skin and bones.