Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2010 12:00:41 +0100 From: paxos@hushmail.com Subject: London Victoria - part 6 Green Park shimmers. Trees cast cool dappled shadows on park benches. Around the edge taxis stalk down Constitution Hill. Baked asphalt mingles with car horns and petrol. In St. James' Park the lake refracts and glitters. Pelicans turn to watch a double-decker bus lurch by. Office workers sunbathe by unbuttoning collars and taking their shoes off. Young women dangle thumbed novels above their heads and shield their eyes. Mothers flap flies from picnics. London hums. Charles Fox looks back from the window to the computer screen. He looks at the calendar. He scrolls backwards. The days. The weeks. The months. He scrolls forward. Meaningless small squares chart his life in tight blocks. By day. By month, by year. He scrolls, flicking the mouse wheel. The blocks flicker. He picks up the phone and dials. "Tim. Charles... Yes I know. Tim, look, I want you to be the first to know. I'm selling the company." --- Dillon doesn't hear the passing trains anymore. He is focussed on the laptop screen. For months now he has been on a journey of his own. His London Victoria is Nifty. From its platforms he boards trains to another country. Stories cascade down the departure board. All destinations. He has travelled. He has been down tracks to places he never imagined. He has met fellow travelers and chatted to them. The fake, the predator, the friend, the wary. The things he has seen. The places he has been. Those he has known. And orgasms have come by caressing keys and kissing with files. Instant messages, fleeting, addicting, endless. When he returns from these journeys he returns to school, to TV with his mum, to toys he has not grown out of, to sport, to mates in the park. But his London Victoria is built now. Like a grand vaulted cathedral, teeming with crowds, cascading departure boards and diesel locomotives humming at the platforms. ---- His PA has laid out his dinner jacket. He knots his bow tie and selects a pair of gold cufflinks in the shape of comedy and tragedy from his desk drawer. He slips into the jacket, straightens in the mirror and leaves the office. He walks down Piccadilly in the easy evening air. Taxi drivers slow as they pass him. He passes the Ritz and now has to thread himself through the summer crowds. He cuts through Jermyn Street, down Haymarket then left on Orange Street. His familiar route to the Opera. Turning into St. Martin's Lane the blocky front of the Coliseum rises above him to its ziggurat, topped by the distinctive globe. Posters display the outline of a boy in a sailor suit against the title in a modern font: "Death in Venice". --- Immediately he clicks send, he regrets it. Butterflies in his stomach. The photograph of his football team had the name of their school in the background. He had forgot. --- "Excuse me... So sorry...." He slides towards his seat in the middle of the stalls. The theatre is full. Conversations all around him. Baroque. Velvet. Scrolls of intricately painted foliage, and everywhere the buzz of the audience. The elderly woman in the seat next to him smiles as he checks his ticket. "Are you excited?" He looks at her politely. "Excuse me?" "This production has been creating quite a stir, hasn't it?" He smiles. "Yes, it certainly has." "Apparently, the reason they use such a young dancer in this production is because in real life the boy was eleven." "So I've heard." "Benjamin Britten made him an older teenager so as not to shock the audience." "Well, now we are made of sterner stuff." He smiled. "We modern audiences like to be shocked." "Demand it even." "Quite." He looks around. "Do you come to the Opera much?" "Oh, you know...." --- He doesn't like the way the chat is going. The guy seems to know more about him. A lot more. He has no idea how. He is typing quickly now. He covers his mouth with his hand. Then types again as the rails rattle and scream outside. --- The Grand Hotel fills the enormous stage in colonnades and marble that rise like the music in heavy drapery. The spotlights bounce off bibbed waiters who dance and circle the dining room as Aschenbach enters alone, a flute welcoming him to his table. In the orchestra pit the conductor's chest swells as the Polish family arrive and waiters pirouette. Tadzio, eleven, a white sailor shirt open to the waist, in flared shorts and bare feet skips away from the family, downstage. Despite the sawing orchestra, despite the lift and fall, despite the drum and cymbals, there is perfect silence. 2,500 people hold their breath. Alone in all the world, he dances for them. --- Charles Fox leaves the throng outside the Coliseum and sucks in the cooling air. He checks his watch and hails a cab. "Victoria station." "Certainly Guvnor. Been to the Opera? Partial to a little opera myself, in fact. Not keen on the modern stuff mind you...." "Do you mind if we don't talk?" The driver's eyes in the rear-view mirror. Neon yellow streaks slide against the long pulses of brake-lights. Pedestrians move like shoals. Shopfronts and street signs. Charles Fox blows his nose into the damp linen and stares out into the night. Brightly lit, Victoria Station swerves into view. "£8." He hands him a tenner and waits for the change. On the pavement he loosens then removes his bow tie. He walks into the bright lights and looks up at the departure board as he makes his way to the usual platform. He moves past students. Elderly couples. Faces turned up towards the board. Late commuters. Strangers to him. And him with Tadzio in his eyes. With the boy in the window. Dancing for him in the red bedroom. Balancing on one foot to remove a sock just as deftly as the boy on stage. Arms curving to pull off his shirt. Head turning like a ballet dancer. His Tadzio. The train is at the platform. He walks down the ramp. There is a boy in a hooded top, sitting on the platform gate. He walks. His back is straight. He keeps walking. His hand is in his pocket, hunting for his season ticket. The boy is looking towards him under the cowl. He has the ticket. He is walking straight ahead. The boy is leaning forward. He checks his watch. The boy jumps down and stands. He checks the monitor for the departure time. The boy is pushing the hood off his head. He keeps walking. He looks at the boy. He stops. --- Aschenbach discovers the plague that stalks Venice. That threatens his boy. In the oily lagoon, it festers, and the orchestra winds and contorts around it. In shadows of faded grand buildings, in hushed back rooms it lurks. Those that have it cough blood and wipe their mouths. Nowhere is safe. The Grand Hotel empties, but the Polish family will not leave. Aschenbach, infected himself, looks for the boy to warn him. To save him. He scours the swollen city. He hunts on the beaches and in the alleys. He seeks without finding. Finally, exhausted, with the audience craning forward, he slumps into a deckchair on the beach. Tadzio runs towards him scared and beaten by someone older. They do not speak. But he buys the boy a ticket to Brighton. As London rolls under the wheels of their carriage, Dillon's hand rests on the table. His neck twists to see the passing Thames. He shifts in his seat. Across from him, Charles Fox wipes his mouth and leans forward. The audience of one, holds its breath. Dillon in his train-seat, turning his slender neck; alone in all the world, dances for him. --- comments much appreciated paxos@hushmail.com