Beatlebone

Part Five. BLACK ATLANTIS

He sits in the cave. He listens for their voices but all he can hear is the slow release of the sea — a dissolve, or hissing. His mind is on the blink. His heart pumps the fear. His lips make words madly. Words that are set to run backwards. Words that run off in all directions. He has a set of nerves on like a sack of fucking snakes. He names himself backwards — Nhoj. A Bedouin in a tent? Under the starry cold desert sky. He sits in the cave. He listens very hard but there are no voices. He is way off the beam now. He is a fucking halfwit for even thinking he could walk out in the world still.

Outside, the sea moves. There is a foul hypnosis to it. There is a terrible queasiness to it. Vast creatures moan in the sea’s great room. He listens so hard that his tongue lolls. There is a new, odd, unlovely music on his brain—

He can hear squalling accordions and the manic trembles of timpani.

He can hear the white noise of a migraine feedback.

He can hear madhouse screeches and sawblade whines.

Well I’m in some kind of hell out here, aren’t I?

He tries to slow each breath as it passes through. He is scared but lit by a strange excitement, also. He feels that he is close to the edge of something new.

That gull’s cry sounds just like a lost child mewling.

——

He hides all day in the cave. He has put down some difficult days in his time and here’s another for the fucking annals. It is the movement of the water that works after a long while to calm him. There is an aching sound deep down in the rocks. He hears it as something close to a human sound.

He listens for their voices. The night creeps into the cave like a quiet animal — there are no voices.

Half-dark the May night cloaks the island again and the sea — he is so very far from home and love.

A fish jumps to break the surface of the water and his heart pops loose of its box and the fish is gone again but he is alive on the silver of its skin.

There is an opening-up inside. His mind turns again on its rusty old motors. Despite it fucking all. He feels that giddiness and he feels that grandeur.

An elegant, a dark gothical seabird appears and moves its slow-beat-steady wings across and just inches above the water.

First streaks of nightgreen run the sky.

Nobody can find him out here. He is safe here for a while at least. He digs his monkey toes into the sand and feels the tiny grains as they roll the crevices of the skin and slowed by his clamminess they cake. There have been other animals in this cave before. There have been other animals among these rocks before. He can feel them here still. In the sand deeply buried their chalk-white and brittle bones—

Elkbone.

Wolfbone.

Sealbone.

The words bring a dark turn. How might it be never to leave this place? To open a vein into the fine white sand. His lips sting hard with salt as though he’s had a feed of chips. The rocks pitch their aching — maybe he will never escape this place — and the way the oil and vinegar soak the brown paper of the bag to translucence.

Blow a ring of the breath on each chip to cool it off—

Hoff!

The hunger pang tells him that he is alive and not for leaving.

The slivers of an odd tune come right inside — it sounds like it comes from the future, or else it comes from deep in the past.

The slivers fade as quick but what you do is you just wait—

Slowtime; cavetime; the silver of the sea-night.

——

Sometimes when his nerves are in rags it does some good to recite the numbers of the Liverpool buses—

The sixteen for Princes Park.

The forty-two for Mount Vernon and Edge Hill.

The seventeen — Kirkdale; the nine — Dingle.

Buses for Crosby, Walton, Anfield Road, and the rainsome air and the steam of a caff — an egg and chip, a mug of tea you’d walk your boots across — and the yellow of the yellow of the egg yolks — so queasy and vibrant — and the long flirtations over frothy coffees — it’s from a good convent you get the better quim, the cheeky skirt, the turned-up noses and try-me eyes — and as he dreams his heart begins to slow again, and ease.

Cavetime.

He opens his eyes. He watches over the water. He listens carefully in the gaps between the wind. There is never a silence on the island that is true. There is always something that is out there, and moving.

——

He stands in the dark vault of the cave.

The night sea gleams; it moves its lights in a black glister.

The water drags the shingle and the sound is slow and luxurious—

an old king in silverbeard fans a palmful of gold coins to a tabletop covered with white cloth

— and the rocks ache and he sighs in agreement with them. It has never been easy nor was it meant to be.

The fine sand of the cave’s floor comes up to a brilliant white in the moon’s glow. His skin is so white in the glow. He has been ever such a whiteman always — ever the honky, ever the goy.

There is a hard splash as the water splits, and the great sleek head shows, and the dapper spindles of the moustache, and the long fat body works its muscles onto the rocks.

It sidles up to the cave’s entry — hello? — and pokes a sober look inside.

The sad doleful eyes; the night caller; the seal.

There is a moment of sweet calm as their eyes lock on each other’s.

Alright? he says.

Alright, John, the seal says.

——

And I’ll tell you another thing.

Go on?

All this…

He swings his head to indicate the world beyond — he’s got a fat stern head on like a bouncer.

Fucked, he says.

You don’t mean…

I do, John. It won’t last.

You mean everything?

The works, he says.

But it sounds as wehrks.

The wind, the waves, the water, he says.

But it sounded as wawteh.

It’s all in extra time, he says. It’s all of it fucked, son.

Mostly what John cannot get his head around is the Scouse accent.

So where’s it you’re from originally?

You’d know Formby way, John?

Would I? Half my bloody life out there as a kid.

Bunkin’ off, was it?

Now you have me.

——

In a cold sun — wintertime — with their coats laid down in a hollow of the dunes, a salt-lipped girlie, and the way that he kissed her and got a throb on, and he kissed her and put his hand between her legs—clamp. The sudden military clenching of her thighs.

John?

It’s fine.

Don’t.

I won’t then.

The magic words — she opened her legs — and it happened for a while but not for long, and there was the train home — through grim Bootle — and the searching for words — the Albert Dock — and the shifting in seats — Central station — can I see you the Wednesday then? — maybe, I don’t know — and the blue suburbs — maybe, I don’t think so, John — and aunt and home, the home that was his only home.

——

You can’t go back, John.

But I just been.

He eyes the seal hard. He wants some fucking answers here. He has come all this way.

Let me see if I can explain things, John. What you do is you open your eyes in the morning, okay? First thing? And it’s a particular world that appears…Am I right?

Yeah?

And what it’s got is…

is the fall of black hair on the white of her skin

…the look of a world that’s always been. As if it will never change, as if it will never break up, as if it will never disappear…

John cuts in—

I’ve a feeling I’m not about to hear anything good here.

The seal laughs but ruefully.

Reality, John, tends not to hang around. A lonely bloody suburb in 1955—it’s gone — and the rattle of the train for Central under your bony arse — it’s gone — and the smell of the sweat and the red raw of the acne and a tumble in the Formby dunes — it’s gone — and her with a kisser on that tastes of salt and Bovril…

He hadn’t remembered the Bovril tang — a strange seal this.

…and all of it, John? It’s all got the same weight as a bloody dream.

So what’s left that’s real?

This, the seal says. Where you’re sat just now.

The clouds drift to hide the moon; the cave darkens. A pool of silence is allowed to open. The silence is a tease. The seal holds it for a long while, then—

What’s it you want to know?

John sits up a little straighter. He feels his mouth dry out. His words come small and shyly—

Do the, ah…

Go on?

Do the dead ones get together out there?

You’re an odd fish, John.

I know that.

Do you mean on the water?

I think I do, yeah.

It’s complicated, the seal says.

Silence — a heavy beat.

Then—

Deathhauntedness, the seal says.

Okay.

That’s our little problem, isn’t it, John?

John’s head swings low — his remorse.

Deathhauntedness, the seal says. The fear that it’s all going to end and the measuring out of the time that’s left or might be and the morbid fear of numbers and dates and the fear of photographs because they hold the moment in such a sad way and the sense of summer and life as a painful place, as if it’s a painful place to be, out here, in life, and the fear of brightness and the fear of light and the fear of losing her, of dying first — who dies first? — and every time you hold her it’s what you think — who dies first? — and the cold cold feeling that comes in the small hours

— am I getting close in yet, John? Am I getting close in yet, old pal? —

and the stewing in the past and the sense of every time being maybe the last time and everything is charged and everything glows and the night terrors that come in a soak of sweat

— you could call all of this more plainly love—

and the sentiment and the fear and the poison and the pain…

Don’t forget the fucking isolation, pal!

I could hardly forget that, John. The sense that life is for everyone else but not for you? And you know the scariest of the lot? The very worst of it all?

Stop.

You think it might be the sweetest feeling, don’t you, John?

You want to take the pain away.

You want to take the numbness away.

You want to let it fade away.

Let it fade, he says.

And he is alone then in the cave.

——

The next fucking development—

He tries to step from the cave but the white sand rises and circles its grains, slowly at first, but then faster and faster again until it’s a great spinning wheel of blurred light and he’s trapped inside.

He tries to Scream but nothing comes.

He cannot hear himself breathe — is he even breathing?

He cannot hear his heart beat — is it even beating?

He tries to Scream but nothing comes.

He is flung back by a great force.

The grains of sand settle again to the cave floor and for a moment a dead silence holds.

Then he hears his name called—

Joh-hhhnn?

——

The voice is taken by the wind again.

He sits in the cave and asks his heart to settle.

As if it has ever yet settled.

He watches over the water. He works to slow his breath. He sits as still as he can. The vaulted eaves of the cave contain all that’s left of him.

These haunted, vaulted eaves.

He begins to gain the control of his thoughts again. He sees that the morning will come up clear. He begins to trace out the lines of something new. He says the words aloud until they come in forms and pattern. He can see the tiny detail and he can see the broader sweep.

He stands and paces between the cave’s walls. He slaps a palm off each of the walls in turn, and he counts aloud as he slaps and paces, he counts from one to nine and back again.

It will contain nine songs — the nine.

He can hear the tiny fragments — he can hear the broader sweep.

There is an autumn and a winter and a cold, cold spring pouring through him now — he needs to keep pace with the rush.

It will contain nine fucking songs, and it will fucking cohere, and it will be the greatest fucking thing he will ever fucking do.

Now in the cave he has all of its words and all of its noise and all of its squall.

He sees the broad sweep — he sees the tiny detail. This is the one that will settle every score. This is pure expression of scorched ego and burning soul.

The title comes through with first light. He makes carefully with a finger the letters of the word in the white sand

b e a t l e b o n e

and this is what he knows for sure:

Heard once it will haunt you fucking always.

——

The morning comes higher to make a bone-white sky. It takes away his manic joy and slips the anxiety back in. Because this is how it fucking is and this is how it fucking goes.

He is so tired. He hasn’t slept a wink. He has tried so hard this long while to be at home in the world. Baking the bread. Swinging in a papoose the baby. Cosy-as-the-fucking-womb stuff. Captain fucking Domestic. Doing all the voices. Doing down the days. But his mind will go to other places. He cannot hold the moment. It is the moment itself that contains all riches. Maybe on his own island he will finally learn to hold the moment. He needs to get to his own island. He has been drawn there again for a reason. He is on the wrong fucking island. He needs to make the trip whole now.

He stands and shakes out his limbs.

Alright then, he says.

He tastes the sea and the salt, the sexiness, the early morning air.

He steps from the cave.

——

They’ll call it another crack-up album. Fucking press. Fucking pigs with typewriters. Fucking typing with their fucking toes. Tappety-fucking-tap-tap. With their stubby little piggie fucking toes and their fags in their piggie little gobs and their fat little mugs of honey-brown ale. Feed their fat fucking faces. Fat typing piggie bastards.

Well, okay: crack-up album is just fine with him—

Where it all breaks loose.

Where it all comes down.

Where he breaks the fucking line.

He wants to break the line and he wants to sing his black fucking heart out and speak at last his own true mind.

World be wary, world be brave: John’s about.

He walks, and he is so brave now, and he no longer listens for the voices — if the Amethyst throwbacks come at him he will rip their fucking eyes out and piss in the sockets.

He walks—

Clew Bay is laid out before him in the morning sun.

Clew Bay is where paranoia comes true.

——

He has a natter with the gulls. He explains the benefits of capitalism. He has a little sing. He finds that he has a throb on, of all things, and he’d fuck anything now, he’d fuck a clump of seaweed. He feels brave and guided; he feels clairvoyant and strong. He stops up — he’s had a stunning thought. Is there such a thing, he wants to know, as a positive crack-up? Where the mind breaks down and re-forms again but only to show the world more clearly than before. A mind left calm as a settled pool.

Now he has a spring in his monkey step.

The sun bleeds gold from the water.

——

He kicks off his dead sneakers. Fuck you, pal, and fuck you, too. Now his feet are cut by the stones as he walks, and he bleeds, and it isn’t too much of a stretch from here to a bleeding Jesus, is it?

All he needs the cross for his back.

All he needs the tears in the garden.

The tiny islands are beaded through the fields of Clew Bay. His is down there, somewhere: a fortress in the sea. All he needs is a boat to bring him to his island.

With every step he turns up another version of himself.

He walks on.

The past seeps again — the past is hidden on the dark side of every moment, just there — and it takes him to Achill when they came before; it’s nine years since.

——

They walked for a while on the beach. They scrambled over the rocks. The last of the summer day was down the rockpools in its colours. There were tiny carnivals down there. They sat for a while but it was chilly; they wouldn’t sit for long. He took her hand and showed his palm and he ran the tip of her finger along the lines of his palm.

Go on, he said. What’s it you see there?

They went across the rocks and heard a screeching. He took it for a squall of birds. But he saw the figures on the tideline then.

They stayed hidden among the rocks. They looked on down the beach. There were shades on the tideline. There were some women there. He counted — there were nine of them, but they were bunched together and moving as one, and they were dressed in black and as though from a faraway time.

The fuck? he said.

The women went among the waves, and they watched — rapt — as the women’s screams bled out the sky, and the women kept walking until they were hip-high, until they were chest-high, until the waves broke on their pale white throats — there were nine of them in a line, their heads leant back—

Jesus fuck, he said.

— and their black clothes floated on the water, and their Screams came up to a high pitch, and died.

The women shook out their limbs against the sky.

They began to hiss and caw at each other.

They began to beat at each other.

Fucking hell, he said.

She put a finger to her lips — he wanted to pull away but she would not let him go.

Ghosts, she said.

——

He walks the length of the day. He walks on his blistering Jesus-type feet. He makes it onto a fucking road at last. Again the light is fading. He doesn’t know east from west, south from north, land from sky, day from night. But he knows the van’s growl as it turns a curve and comes at him fast and headlong and now it brakes hard.

Here’s Cornelius—

the sorrowful little wave of the hand,

the humorous, the woeful eyes,

the sad rolling-down of the window.

This is madness, John, he says.

This is buck fucken madness, John, he says.

There is no call for this under the sun nor fucken stars, John, he says.

——

A word rolls slowly in his mouth—

Dumb-foun-ded.

Transmitted from who-knows-where, and John just sits there, and the van moves, and Cornelius talks sensibly as he steers—

People go strange out here, John. You wouldn’t be the first and you won’t be the last. This place has a bad fucken air about it.

Those people wanted to hurt me, Cornelius.

Nonsense, John. Those are lovely, warm, decent-hearted people. It was all in your mind.

The deep-boom beat and the lapping of the water; the van’s spluttering motor; his wretched heart.

You’re saying that I’m fucking paranoid?

Now that, John, is the man precisely.

The van moves; the road is taken.

What have you been doing, John?

I’ve been working, Cornelius.

How so?

By empathising with the common man and his everyday tragedies and his common fucking despair.

Where was this?

In a cave.

Now, Cornelius says, and he flaps a paw gracefully — it’s as though the world entirely is at its ease.

Anyway there are developments, John.

Oh?

You see the way it is out here is that things can move slow enough for a long while. It’s all slow, slow, slow. And then? Quick! Out of nowhere, John? Quick. All of a sudden things moving at a savage fucken pelt and the wind behind them.

He wants her so badly, he wants her touch so badly; he is so many miles from love and home.

I was worried about you, John. I won’t tell a word of a lie. You could have gone over on an ankle. You could have gone over a fucken cliff. You could have been found at the bottom of it stone dead or halfways there. You could have been left a vegetable, John.

Cornelius?

But the time you were lost did us a power of good. Westport town is clear as day. Mulranny is clear. Newport is clear. The newspaper men have decided you were no more than an apparition. Clew Bay has been left entirely open to us. We have played this game sweet. Everything is just right for the excursion.

I think it’s best now if you just get me to a fucking airport.

Nonsense, John. We are heading for the island.