Martin Millar - The Good Fairies of New York.html (4 page)

'Let's go home,' she said.

They walked home, noticing as they did a worried-looking bag lady slinking her way up 3rd Street, taking cover behind cars and lamp-posts.

'Another madwoman. There are a lot of them here.'

Magenta was not exactly mad, but after plunging over the handlebars of the bicycle due to too much alcohol, she was not feeling very well. She retired to a doorway, fished out her stolen copy of Xenophon's
Expedition to Persia
and thumbed through it for a hangover cure.

The birds and animals gossiped in Central Park.

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'I heard from a blackbird,' said a pigeon to a squirrel, 'who heard from a seagull, that the albatrosses are looking for some creatures who sound a lot like these fairies.'

The pigeons and squirrels looked at the fairies and wondered if there was going to be trouble.

'I miss Heather and Morag,' said Brannoc.

'Well I don't,' answered Padraig, tuning his fiddle. 'I never met such argumentative fairies in my life. I'm not surprised they were run out of Scotland. If they ever made it to Ireland, they'd be run out of there as well.'

Violin tuned, Padraig started to play. He played 'The Milt-down Jig' slowly, then a little faster, then broke into a dazzling version of 'Jenny's Welcome to Charley', a long and complicated reel. Maeve joined in on her pipes. Fairy musicians have magical control over the volume of their instruments and the two blended perfectly.

The animals stopped gossiping to watch and listen. Maeve and Padraig were the best fairy musicians in Ireland, and this is almost the same as saying they were the best musicians in the world, although Heather and Morag

might well have had something to say about that.

Kerry's apartment consisted of two small rooms. The bed was raised on a platform and underneath she stored her clothes. She lay on the bed. Morag sat beside her.

'Back in Scotland,' said the fairy, 'I am well known for my astute psychic insights. And it strikes me that since I have been here you have never really been happy. Am I right?'

Kerry burst into tears.

'I was unhappy long before you arrived,' she said.

'Why? Your life seems good. Braw even. Everyone likes you. You have lovers queuing up at your door, though

you turn them all away.'

Kerry stared at her poster of the New York Dolls. They stared back at her, pouting.

'I turn them away because of my disease,' explained Kerry.

Kerry had Crohn's disease, a most unpleasant ailment which rots away the intestines.

'After a while doctors have to cut out the diseased parts.'

Morag shuddered. This was beyond her imagination.

Kerry undid her shirt. On her left side she had a bag taped to her skin.

The meaning and function of a colostomy bag were not obvious to Morag until Kerry explained.

Morag stared gloomily out the window. Life streamed past but she was not entertained. She was imagining what it would be like to have a hole cut in your side for your excreta to empty into a bag.

The sun was particularly strong today. The heat was overpowering. Pedestrians sweated their way along the

sidewalks and drivers cursed and sounded their horns.

Kerry patted her triple-bloomed Welsh poppy, an almost unimaginably rare flower and the pride of her collection.

It was finding it growing wild in a ruined building which had set her off on her quest for the flower alphabet. She kissed it, stroked it and spoke to it nicely.

Next she checked her new
Mimulus cardinalus,
a pretty red and yellow flower, the newest addition to her alphabet.

The cut flower hung upside-down to dry. Once it was dry she would spray it with hairspray to preserve it and add it to the other fifteen preserved blooms covering her floor.

Cal had stopped going out with her when he learned about her colostomy, saying that he could not see himself

having a relationship with someone whose excreta emptied into a bag at her side. This made Kerry feel very bad.

Morag sighed. Being human did seem to involve some very unpleasant things.

'I don't want a violin lesson,' declared Dinnie. 'And I don't want you here. Go and join your friend.'

'She isn't my friend,' protested Heather. 'Just someone I had the misfortune to meet. I took pity on her. To tell you the truth, she annoyed the hell out of me.'

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Heather settled down with a thimbleful of whisky, skilfully removed from the bar on the corner.

'Brag, brag, brag, all the time. Just because she's got a few psychic powers. So what? Psychic powers are ten-a-penny among fairies. Common as muck. I wouldn't take them as a gift. Of course, her basic problem is that she is insanely jealous of my spectacular golden hair which made all the male fairies in Scotland fancy me like nobody's business. Drove her crazy. Gentlemen prefer blondes, as we used to say in the Highlands.'

'You both dye your hair,' Dinnie pointed out, eyeing the crimson ends of Heather's blonde tresses with disapproval.

'But mine always looked better,' chuckled Heather. 'Morag's is too dark to dye properly.'

Dinnie stared glumly at the wall. If he had believed in fairies, he wouldn't have expected them to spend all their time bitching about each other's hairstyles.

He eyed his violin. A defeated expression settled on his large pink face. It was too difficult for him. He would not make any progress. He did not even genuinely like the instrument any more, although when he had first seen it in the junk shop, lying under a pile of broken trumpets, it had seemed to mean something to him.

At school he had learned to play for a short while before giving up. He had bought the violin and music book

because they reminded him of school, which was the last time he had had any friends.

'Pick it up,' instructed Heather.

'No.'

This was all very frustrating to Heather. If Dinnie did not learn the fiddle she would lose face in front of Morag.

Heather had unwisely boasted to her that with her superior fiddling skills it would be no trouble to teach Dinnie to play.

Now she realised that Morag had trapped her into this rash statement by deliberately laughing at the MacKintoshes.

'When you can play well you'll earn money busking.'

'Not soon enough to prevent me getting evicted,' grunted Dinnie. After the theft of his bike, busking was a sore subject.

Heather ran her fingers through her golden hair, admired herself in the mirror, and thought desperately. She would die before admitting failure in front of Morag MacPherson.

'Well how about this,' she suggested. 'I will try and teach you the fiddle. If you make progress, you will be pleased.

If you fail to make progress, I promise to go away and leave you in peace. Then you will also be pleased.'

The notion of Heather disappearing into the depths of Manhattan was indeed pleasing to Dinnie.

'Okay,' he agreed, 'teach me something.'

'I'll make you lick my snatch you filthy worm,' snarled a woman's voice. 'Phone 970 D—O—M—M now!'

'Please turn off channel twenty-three,' said Heather. 'It is not conducive to fiddle teaching.'

Dinnie laughed.

'I might have known you fairies would be prudes.'

'I am not a prude. In the Highlands I was widely regarded as the hottest lover since the great fairy piper Mavis MacKintosh, who once lay with eighteen men, twelve women and the chief of the MacAuly fairies in one night,

leaving all of them pleased but exhausted. I just don't like phone domination. Kindly turn it off.'

In Central Park, Brannoc was moodily eyeing Petal and Tulip who were holding hands under a bush. As they were brother and sister they had every right to hold hands, but it made Brannoc jealous. Brannoc had been infatuated with Petal since the day he arrived in Cornwall, a wandering minstrel from the cold, unknown shires of northern England.

Maeve and Padraig were asking the squirrels where they might find a drop of Guinness.

'In many bars,' one of the squirrels told them. 'This place is full of Irish people who love to drink Guinness and their bars have shamrocks outside them. But it would mean going on to the streets which are full of humans. And though you claim that back in Ireland any human would have been delighted to stop whatever they were doing and bring you some beer, here I am not so sure.'

Maeve declared that she would go right that minute and find some because she was Maeve O'Brien from Galway

and not afraid of humans or anything else, but Padraig was cautious and said they should wait.

Petal and Tulip were lost in a dream. They frequently disappeared into the trance-like fairy dream state to forget about their father. They were the children of Tala the King and they knew he would never stop pursuing them.

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'Wow,' said Spiro when he learned of this. 'You're the King's children. Imagine! Royalty! Right here in Central Park!'

But Maeve poured scorn on this because she detested English royalty. She dismissed Petal and Tulip's arguments with their father as standard English aristocratic stupidity.

'Never did a day's work in their lives,' she muttered, and played a fierce jig on her pipes.

Brannoc strummed his mandolin lightly. He was teaching Petal and her brother mandolin and flute. When they

were not dreaming, they were quick to learn.

Dinnie was not quick to learn.

'Use the bow delicately. You are not trying to saw the fiddle in half.'

Heather, five minutes into her first lesson, was beginning to regret it. So was Dinnie. He stood up, tall, fat and awkward.

'I've changed my mind,' he said. 'I'll learn some other time.'

Heather clenched her teeth.

'Dinnie, you are trying my patience. A fairy teaching you music is a big honour. Enjoy it.'

'Big fucking honour, you dumb elf,' rasped Dinnie.

'Eat shit, you fat sonofabitch,' rasped Heather. She had already picked up a few useful expressions in the bar on the corner.

They glared at each other.

'Pick up the fiddle.'

'I've got other things to do.'

'Like what? What do you have planned for this evening? Visiting a few friends perhaps?'

Dinnie narrowed his pudgy eyes uncomfortably.

'You don't have any friends, do you?'

'So what?'

'So this: despite your incredible rudeness to me, really you are pleased to have me around because otherwise you would have no one at all to talk to. In this enormous city you do not have so much as one friend. Is this not true?'

Dinnie picked up the remote control and switched on the TV. Heather nimbly leapt on to the control and switched it off.

'Do not feel bad about it, Dinnie. I have been busy learning about this place. Apparently loneliness is not

uncommon. I know this because I read an article about it in a young women's magazine that an old man was

reading in the bar. In Cruick-shank, everyone is friendly with everyone else. How it is that with so many people here some people aren't friendly with anyone at all is beyond me, but I can fix it for you.'

'Don't bother,' grunted Dinnie.

'It is no bother. Among Scottish fairies I am famous for my ability to win friends. Of course, with my golden hair and other-worldly beauty, everyone generally wanted to make friends with me anyway — something, incidentally, that used to drive Morag crazy — but even so, I could always win over the unfriendliest troll or Red Cap.'

'Fine. If you meet any trolls down 4th Street, you won't have any problems.'

'I am the best fiddle player in the world. And you will soon be good as well, with a MacKintosh fairy helping you.

You should have heard Neil Gow before my mother showed him a few tricks.'

'Who's Neil Gow?'

'Who's Neil Gow? He was the most famous Scottish fiddler ever. He was born in Inver, which is close to where I come from. He is buried in the churchyard of Little Dunkeld, a very pretty place, although we fairies are not too keen on churchyards as a rule. I could tell you many interesting stories about Neil Gow.'

'And no doubt you will.'

'Later. Anyway, his technique was appalling till my mother took him in hand. My family taught all the best

Scottish violinists, and I'm sure I can teach you. So stop eyeing up the TV control and let's go.

'Lesson one. "The Bridge of Balater", a slow strathspey, but stirring in the hands of a master.'

Heather played 'The Bridge of Balater'. It was a slow strathspey, but stirring in her hands. Each Scottish Snap snapped in a way rarely heard since the time of Neil Gow. On the window-sill, birds settled down to listen.

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Outside on the street, Rachel, an old bag lady, hearing Heather's beautiful playing, rested her weak legs on the theatre steps.

'I'm glad I heard something worthwhile before I die,' she murmured to herself, and warmed her insides on the good fairy's aura.

Upstairs, Heather beamed at Dinnie.

'Now you try.'

Dinnie, his battered copy of
The Gow Collection of Scottish Dance Music
balanced uncomfortably on his knee, struggled his way through 'The Bridge of Balater'. The birds departed and Rachel was jerked unwillingly back to the land of the living. ,

'Appalling,' said Heather, truthfully. 'But you will be better in no time. Now look. This symbol on the music means a turn, played like this . . . And that symbol means tremolo, played like this ... Try it.'