Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving (21 page)

Right at the front of the crowd were Mo and Cody. Their heads being full of marijuana, their dreams were somewhat confused, but Cody had pleasant visions of playing his guitar on stage and being
generally admired. Mo shared Cody's rock and roll fantasies but a more pressing concern was to humiliate Elfish.

“Have you met my friend?” he said loudly, grabbing Elfish's arm as she passed. Elfish halted. She glanced at the woman beside Mo who wore sunglasses as black as her own and a floppy hat which concealed all her hair. As Elfish watched she took off her hat and her bright blonde tresses tumbled down over her shoulders.

“Hello, Elfish,” said Amnesia. “You don't imitate my voice very well but we both enjoyed your phone calls. Especially when we were fucking.”

Amnesia laughed, and so did Mo and Cody. The rest of Mo's band joined in, and then their friends. Elfish suddenly found herself surrounded by a circle of mocking and jeering faces, all of whom had known all along about her attempts at deception.

Elfish was stunned. The laughter grew louder.

“Come on, Elfish,” said May, pulling her sleeve, but Elfish was rooted to the spot. She had a disturbingly vivid picture of Mo and Amnesia listening to her phone calls while lying in bed together and the humiliation this caused her was almost too intense to bear.

“Do your Amnesia imitation for me,” said Mo, and roared and shook with laughter. Then he leapt up on to the stage, tapped his finger on the singer's microphone to check it was working and announced to the audience that it was now time for Elfish to quote a speech from Shakespeare to them all. The audience, waiting for this moment, went quiet but Mo's entourage kept on laughing. Elfish stood stock still, blinking back a tear behind the sunglasses she had bought with the money she stole from Cary and Lilac.

THE MOMENT ELFISH dragged her body on stage she knew she was going to fail. Standing in front of the microphone she could not prevent herself from trembling. The whole room was now silent, waiting, but the Queen of Dreams could not remember a word.

The silence deepened. Everyone was staring fixedly at Elfish and a new and more sickening humiliation crept up over her.

“Speech!” called Mo, in mockery, bringing renewed laughter from his friends. Elfish scanned her memory with frantic fear, hope and terror but it was useless. She could not recall a single line of Mercutio's speech. The revelation about Amnesia had been too upsetting and the stress thus caused had driven the hard-learned Shakespeare right out of her mind. She stood alone in front of the audience, obviously unable to do what she had publicly promised.

In the hall the silence began to break down into a buzz of conversation punctuated by laughter and some shouts of abuse, all of which made Elfish feel worse. Paralysis took hold of her and she was unable either to speak or move.

“Speech!” cried Mo again. His friends laughed and other people started to join in.

“O! then, I see, Queen Mab hath been with you . . .” shouted
Shonen, prompting her with the first line, but it was hopeless. No power on earth, and not even Queen Mab, could make Elfish remember the speech.

As Elfish stood in silent ignominy, Mo and Cody roared with laughter. Amnesia could barely contain herself and leant on Mo for support, howling with joy.

Elfish remained frozen and terrorised on stage as the laughter spread. Apart from the few supporters she had in the audience, every person in the room now loudly mocked and jeered at her hopelessly inept performance. She found herself in the middle of a nightmare from which she was unable to escape. There seemed to be no way for Elfish to end the situation. She could not even move. Her limbs were paralysed. She would stand there and be ridiculed for the rest of her life.

Eventually, to save his sister from further humiliation, Aran clambered on to the stage and took hold of Elfish's arm. He led her off down the stairs at the side and propelled her through the crowd towards the bar. Elfish allowed herself to be led but she was too distraught to respond to his solicitations. She was acutely aware that her dream had gone. It had flown away to the moon. She could not now call her band Queen Mab. All of her endeavours had been for nothing. At the vital moment she had proved herself to be no better than all the people around her whom she had abused for giving up and accepting defeat.

ELFISH LEANT AGAINST the bar, wreathed in dejection.

“Are you all right?” asked Aran, aware that it was a stupid question.

She shook her head miserably.

“Do you want to leave?”

Elfish did not reply, but placed her hand inside Aran's jacket to remove the small bottle of whisky she knew he was carrying there. Aran, not naturally a generous spirit, let her take it. He could see that all around them people were still looking at Elfish and laughing and he feared that at any moment she might break down entirely. Elfish began pouring the whisky down her throat. Her brother was relieved to see Shonen hurrying towards them. It would surely help if Elfish's friends rallied round.

Unfortunately, Elfish's torments were not yet over. Shonen had not come to rally round.

“I've just been talking to Mo,” she exclaimed. “He still says you don't know a fund-raiser. He says you can't help my theatre group. He says you made it all up. Is this true?”

Deep in the misery of defeat and taken by surprise, Elfish found herself unable to lie.

“Yes,” she said, without expression.

Shonen turned white and spun on her heel, rushing to vomit in the toilet. Elfish immediately found herself confronted by an angry-looking May and Gail.

“Gail says Chevon isn't moving out of your house and I won't be able to live there!” shouted May at the top of her voice.

“It's true,” said Elfish.

“And Mo tells me you've never even met Adam,” yelled Gail. “And the talk of benefit gigs for the magazine is a lie.”

Elfish's eyes were glazing over. Her reply was too quiet to be heard but it was obvious from her demeanour that she was indeed admitting to lying.

There was no letup. Shonen returned from the toilet to join the others in shouting at her. Elfish quailed. Previously she had been prepared to face down these people when the moment came, confident that once her dream was fulfilled she would have the strength to ignore their fury. Now she could not. Her strength and spirit were both dripping away, leaving her empty inside. She could feel her filth and hunger, and her body was protesting violently about her long period of tension, and drug and alcohol abuse.

Aisha strode up. To anyone familiar with her she had the look of a woman who had managed to control her agoraphobia just long enough to leave the house but knew that it would defeat her before she got back. As she approached, her very limbs were shaking and her face was beginning to distort.

“Where's Mory?” she demanded. “Where is he? He should be here by now.”

Elfish felt unable to answer.

“Is he coming? Mo says you didn't even speak to him.”

Elfish shook her head, and was forced to endure a fresh torrent of abuse. Aisha, Shonen, Gail and May were all now filled with hate for
the woman who had led them on with falsehoods. The room went quiet so that everyone around could hear.

Casaubon, fresh from talking to Mo, marched over to confront Elfish. She saw him coming and felt like an animal trapped in a snare. He pointed a drumstick at her and demanded to know if she had really been in touch with Marcia or was this just another of her lies? When it became obvious that it was, Casaubon's rage was so immediate and violent that Elfish shrank from him and reached backwards to take her brother's hand. Casaubon was very large and Elfish was frightened.

“You fucking little bitch,” screamed Casaubon, apparently driven completely mad by the shattered hope of Marcia returning to him. “I could ram this drumstick down your throat! You think you can just lie to people and get them to do what you want and that's all right? I'll kill you for this, Elfish!”

Casaubon, May, Shonen, Aisha and Gail clustered round the small figure of Elfish and screamed at her. The power of the positive transformation that had been wrought on them all was as nothing compared to the fury they displayed as their dreams crashed around their feet before flying with jeers and mockery to lie dormant, wasted and never to be fulfilled, somewhere on the unreachable surface of the moon.

In the face of this assault Elfish crumbled. She turned to face her brother.

“Help me,” she said.

Unfortunately, her brother was no longer there. Aran, unable to withstand such violent emotions, had deserted her. He was nowhere to be seen.

At this betrayal by her brother Elfish's spirit collapsed completely and she hung her head and started to cry. While her accusers stood
around still screaming at her and the audience listened in with enjoyment, she cried and cried in a public humiliation the like of which had rarely been seen or even imagined by anyone present.

As it seemed that there was now to be no support act playing, the woman behind the mixing desk placed a tape in her machine and Sonic Youth's “Bad Moon Rising” thundered through the speakers.

With their fury still intact but their words for expressing it spent, Shonen, Aisha, Casaubon, May and Gail walked a little distance away then stood together in a knot, still casting evil glances at Elfish. Other onlookers also began to move away from her. They did not wish to find themselves too close to someone so widely condemned and now reduced to the universally dreaded phenomenon of crying in public.

Over in a corner Mo and his band laughed and laughed, and made raucous comments about what Mo might demand from Elfish, should she ever stop crying for long enough to grant it.

ELFISH WAS LOST. She struggled to halt her tears. There was now nothing for her to do except finish Aran's whisky and go home. When Mo appeared in front of her and congratulated her on her performance she was incapable of even making a reply. When he told her how happy he was to call his band Queen Mab she remained mute. Even the sight of Amnesia, gloating, could not make her react.

Someone touched her shoulder from behind and spoke in her ear.

“What time are you playing, Elfish?”

Who could be stupid enough to ask such a question? Turning round, Elfish was not surprised to find that it was Cary and Lilac.

She blinked, trying to clear the tears and grime from her eyes, and wiped a long trail of mucus away from her nose with her sleeve.

“What time are you going on, Elfish? We want to hear you play.”

Elfish shook her head and told them she was not playing. She no longer had a band to play with, she no longer had the desire to play and even if she did no one would want to hear her.

“But you have to play,” said Cary. “That's why we came.”

“And John Mackie said to be sure and encourage you. Thanks for getting us the job with him.”

Having just suffered the worst experience of her life, Elfish was
in no mood to indulge such foolishness. She was irritated beyond belief by their ridiculous good humour and snapped at them, telling them to go away and leave her alone. This had no effect.

“We want to hear you,” they said.

“That's why we came.”

“Will you leave me alone?” demanded Elfish. “I can't stand the way you keep being friendly to me all the time. Haven't you noticed how much I detest you?”

It was no use. Cary and Lilac possessed an unbreakable force-field of benevolent optimism. They laughed off Elfish's aggression, assuming she did not really mean it.

“So are you going to play soon?”

“Aaahhh!” screamed Elfish, tormented again, and felt a desperate desire to stop these people from liking her.

“My sunglasses,” she gasped, in desperation. “You know how I paid for them?”

“How?”

“I stole your money. I dug it up from your garden and stole it.”

Cary and Lilac's eyes widened.

“You didn't.”

“I did.”

“You couldn't.”

Elfish stared at them.

A tear trickled down Lilac's cheek. This treacherous action was too much even for him. Cary sniffed. It was almost impossible for her to believe that Elfish could have done such a thing. Despite all of Elfish's abuse, she had actually thought they were friends.

Wordless and in tears they turned and left.

Well, right, thought Elfish, and felt slightly better. I finally managed to annoy Cary and Lilac.

Belly's “Low Red Moon” sounded loud in the room and smoke hung thick around the tables. Small fingers clutched at Elfish's jacket.

“It's all right, Elfish,” said Cary. “We don't mind.”

“I suppose you needed the money,” said Lilac. “And after all, you got us the job.”

“I didn't get you the job!”

“Well, we got it because we were friends of yours.”

They smiled at her.

“So when are you going to play?”

Elfish was truly astonished. She stared at their eager young faces and grubby white dreadlocks and marvelled at them. And in a moment of revelation she saw quite clearly that Cary and Lilac had a dream that everything was fine and everyone liked them and no matter how ludicrous this dream was they were not going to be dissuaded from it. They had apparently made up their minds to believe it and that was that.

She was abruptly ashamed that she had been dissuaded from her own dream. After all, what did she, Elfish, care what people thought? Not caring what people thought was one of Elfish's strongest points. Looking around the bar she saw her detractors in every corner and she was furious. She was furious with them and furious with herself. Her mind cleared quite suddenly and her spirit revived. She straightened up, took a deep breath, finished Aran's whisky, dropped the bottle so it smashed on the floor and spat in the direction of Mo.