Conductor

In the end, I suppose, it was a doll I wanted.  Not a real woman, not someone whose hands were warm, whose breath whispered across my face when she was close.  Not anybody who I actually needed to talk to.

I’d seen these kind of dolls coming out of Japan mainly and Korea, via Austria and Germany. And it wasn’t the potential for uncomplicated sex with these dolls that attracted me, it really wasn’t.  Instead it was the possibility of a conversation with someone who would listen to me and get where I was coming from without me being a disappointment to them, or them to me.

I would be able to incline her head in that interested pose, cross her hands under her chin, her dark blue eyes tilted up towards mine.  Her eyebrows would be raised in a quizzical arch, her mouth a perfect, surprised O.  Not that I could ever have actually have afforded a doll like this. Which made meeting Edie a blessing.  At least at first.

*

“What time is it?”

“I’m not sure, but it’s dark outside.”

“It’s strange it’s got dark so quickly.”

“I don’t think so.  It’s autumn and the nights are drawing in.”

“Let’s stay right where we are, here by the fire.”

*

I met her on the bus on the way to work.  An ordinary afternoon, an extraordinary girl.  The bus was unusually full and by the time I got on, there was standing room only, apart from the seat next to Edie.  There was barely space even there as she had so many bags. Carrier bags from all sorts of shops, but uniformly stuffed full. 

As she moved closer to the window, she put the bags on top of each other, making a garish tower of orange, red and blue plastic. I don’t completely remember how our conversation started, but it flowed easily as we talked about our reasons for being on the bus – me on the way to the phone shop where I worked, Edie on the way back from the charity shop where she worked.  She told me this accounted for her bags as she loved to take home all the second hand clothes that had caught her eye by the end of her shift. 

She said she loved the feel of clothes that other people had worn, the complexity of their smell. She said she imagined the people who might have worn them.  “I kind of hope as well that when I wear them I might soak up their experiences and all their wisdom”, she said, grinning shyly at me.

I know it can be hard to define what attracts us to particular people, but with Edie it was both her fragility and her directness.  She looked so small, so pale, in the oddly layered clothes she wore.  The coat that buried her, the long skirt that only allowed you to see the ends of her worn, brown boots.  She reminded me of a baby bird, peering out at you from the depths of its nest; but even so, she met my eyes with confidence and held my gaze.

By the time she got off the bus, out of all character for me, I’d invited Edie to go out with me and she’d agreed.  I watched her walk along the side of the bus as it pulled away, noticing how little colour there was about her.  A pale girl, barely there against the washed out, October sky.

*

“Hush, can you hear the leaves skittering across the paving stones?”

“Yes, it’s a beautiful sound. I think I also hear the hooting of an owl.”

“I’m sure you’re right. In a distant garden, high in a tree.”

“I do wish the magpies would stop their chatter though.  That’s not a beautiful sound at all.”

“I agree.  They sound like they’re screeching.  Like they’re angry because they’ve lost something.”

*

We arranged to meet two days later, outside a coffee shop we both said we knew along the high street past both our workplaces.  We’d set the time for six o’clock, but by twenty past six with no sign of Edie, I was already reconciled to the fact she wasn’t going to turn up.  Odd as it sounds these days, she’d said she didn’t own a mobile when I’d asked for her number on the bus, so I had no way at all of contacting her.

In the absence of any other plan, I went into the coffee shop and stared out of the window at the people leaving work.  Busy people rushing home in that mauve, early evening light that October can have.  I drank my coffee slowly to the obvious irritation of the woman who had served me.  She rolled her eyes in my direction as she came out from behind the counter and began stacking stools and mopping around my feet.

The trees on the high street were still just about holding on to their leaves, but I could feel their anticipation of their imminent loss.  I imagined the future, brazen honesty of their naked branches.

*

“When the moon is full on an autumn evening, the sky looks like a cavernous hall.  You know the sort with a high, vaulted ceiling?”

“I do.  Like an ancient, Viking moot hall.”

“Yes, oh yes. And the whole world like a long table full of rich food.  Meat and wine.”

“The stars don’t penetrate a hall like this.  They’re too puny, too insignificant.”

“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it, who would sit at the head of this table in this dark-sky hall on a moonlit night?”

*

The next day, I saw Edie on the bus again and went to sit next to her.  I had every intention of playing it cool and not talking to her; but in reality that’s not my style at all. She took hold of my hand and told me how sorry she was that she’d not turned up, but that something had happened with her dad who she lived with, and that had meant she’d had to stay at home the previous night. 

Her hand was so small and cold in my hand, her voice so soft and low that I heard myself tell her that it didn’t matter, that I was sure we would be able to arrange something else another time soon.

What Edie was wearing fitted her even less well than before.  She had on some kind of blue overcoat with the collar of another coat visible at the neck and the ends of the sleeves. There was a silvery thread running through the fabric of the coat and it shone in the bus’s overhead lights, like a spider’s web in sunshine and dew.  The silver looked out of place for morning wear, too left over party like;  Edie a shabby Cinderella with her tower of clothes in gaudy carrier bags.

All the journey before she got off at her stop, she kept hold of my hand and as she got up to get off at her stop, she kissed me on the cheek, promising to meet me the following evening in the same place we’d arranged to meet before.  I don’t think I believed her, even at that point, but I held on to my cheek as if by doing this, I could prevent her kiss and her promise flying away from me.

*

“The wind is so strong tonight it’s rattling my bones.”

“Yes, I think I can hear them. The rain is pouring out of the downpipe, washing everything away.”

“Don’t be sad, don’t be blue.  We have each other.”

“On nights like this, it’s easy to believe we’re all alone in the world.”

“How wonderful that would be.  Only you and me. All alone.”

*

People do some weird shit and I won’t tell you I’m proud of what I did because I’m not.  But what I did that evening was hide from Edie and follow her home to where she lived.

I left work early, telling my boss I’d had an emergency call from my mother and then I waited near to Edie’s shop.  When she came out, it was about half past three, the day already losing light.  I got on the same bus she did, but moved to the top deck, rushing down when I saw her get off.  I trailed her down the colourless streets to the non-descript house I saw her let herself into.

In the half-light, I went down the house’s side passage, past the bins, so I could see into the garden and the back rooms of the house without being seen myself.  The garden was covered in leaves, their russet and gold colours showy against the silver of the wet paving stones.  The leaves looked like goldfish, out of place, flapping on the ground.  In the trees, other goldfish leaves were pinned by their tails, trapped in the branches.

I was about to move forward, so I could look into one of the downstairs rooms when I became aware of a man opening a back door and coming into the garden.  I stayed where I was and knelt down so I was less visible.  The man was tall and angular, but his movement and what I could see of his face, showed him to be Edie’s father. 

When he walked out onto the lawn, a rush of black birds, rooks I think, flew from the trees that surrounded the garden. From my position, I could feel the air shift with the momentum of their wings.  A whirl of birds, a tornado of birds.  The birds flew in a curtain above the man’s head and he lifted his arms up high. They moved in a figure of eight as if the man was conducting the music of their movement.  A helix of feathers, down and upwards, back to the trees, kaahing and shrieking with one voice.

As abruptly as it started, it stopped and there was only silence, punctuated by the click of the door as the man went back into the house.

I stood up and bent forward so I could look inside.  On every surface, there were clothes spread out into outfits.  Clothes people made of shoes and boots, then trousers and skirts, tops tucked in to waistbands or belts. Clothes laid out like they might be for an important interview or a wedding. Or the suit for eternity a corpse would wear.

In the middle of the room, Edie stood, hands above her head like her father in the garden, as if the clothes might rise from their places and dance at her behest.  As I watched, she lowered her arms again and sank into a chair, becoming indistinguishable from the clothes person that was already there.  Flesh no longer, only a doll.  Beautiful and absent.  

*

“Don’t leave me tonight.”

“I’ll never leave you, my dear.  You know that.”

“I do, but sometimes the night makes me wonder.  I love you.”

“I love you and that holds the dark off.”

“Let’s hope.  Let’s hope.”

*