Dialogues of the Dead

The canned music was growing louder and the dancing waiters who’d been urging more and more customers to join their line were getting close to my table, so I tucked some coins into the leather pouch dangling from the boy’s tunic, paid my bill and left.

It was after midnight when the restaurant closed but I didn’t mind sitting in my car, waiting. There is a pleasure in observing and not being observed, in standing in the shadows watching the creatures of the night going about their business. I saw several cats pad purposefully down the alleyway alongside the Taverna where they kept their rubbish bins. An owl floated between the chimneys, remote and silent as a satellite. And I glimpsed what I’m sure was the bushy tail of an urban fox frisking round the corner of a house. But it was the human creatures I was most interested in, the last diners striding, staggering, drifting, driving off into the night, little patches of Stimmungsbild-voices calling, footsteps echoing, car doors banging, engines revving-which played for a moment against the great symphony of the night, then faded away, leaving its dark music untouched.

Then comes a long pause-not in time but of time-how long I don’t know for clocks are blank-faced now-till finally I hear a motorbike revving up in the alleyway and my boy appears at its mouth, a musician making his entry into the music of the night. I know it’s him despite the shielding helmet-would have known without the evidence of the bazouki case strapped behind him.

He pauses to check the road is empty. Then he pulls out and rides away.

I follow. It’s easy to keep in touch. He stays well this side of the speed limit, probably knowing from experience how ready the police are to hassle young bikers, especially late at night. Once it becomes clear he’s heading straight home to Carker, I overtake and pull away.

I have no plan but I know from the merriment bubbling up inside me that a plan exists, and when I pass the derestriction sign at the edge of town and find myself on the old Roman Way, that gently undulating road which runs arrow-straight down an avenue of beeches all the five miles south to Carker, I understand what I have to do.

I leave the lights of town behind me and accelerate away. After a couple of miles, I do a U-turn on the empty road, pull on to the verge, and switch off my lights but not my engine.

Darkness laps over me like black water. I don’t mind. I am its denizen. This is my proper domain.