A Song for Ella Grey

  And then a final desolate cry of pain.

  I woke at last and staggered out into the new day. Nobody else in the house was awake. It was very early, not much after dawn. Sun just daring to peep above the sea. I walked, stumbled towards this sun, and back towards the Ouseburn.

  Not a soul to be seen on the pathways, on the riverbanks.

  I didn’t feel like me, like Claire.

  I didn’t feel like anyone, like anything.

  Orpheus lay in the water against the gates. I clambered down the steel steps towards him. The water made its weird gushing music as it hurried through the gates, and over him, and over his lyre. I waded ankle-deep to him. Rats scuttled away through the gates as I approached him. He was breathing, gulping air and water.

  “Orpheus,” I whispered. “Orpheus!”

  He looked at me as if I were a ghost.

  “It’s me,” I said. “It’s Claire.”

  “What?” he groaned.

  “Claire.”

  “No!” he cried. “No!”

  “Come out of the water, Orpheus.”

  He clutched the bars of the gate and shook them.

  “It’s me,” I said again. “It’s Claire.”

  ‘What do you see?” he said. “In there! In there!”

  I looked into the watery darkness.

  “Water, the arches, the shadows, nothing…Come out of the water, Orpheus.”

  “Nothing. No, nothing. That’s right.”

  He let me guide him to the bank. We clambered up to the slope of grass. He cast his gaze around the place: The Cluny, the bridges, Seven Stories, the ever-onward-flowing Ouseburn, the morning sky, the sun.

  “This is Hell,” he hissed.

  I picked away the fragments of Ouseburn litter from his clothes and skin. His clothes were sopping wet. I touched his cheek where his tears and the river water mingled.

  “What can I do, Orpheus?” I asked.

  “Ha!” he cried softly. “Start again, Claire. Live a different life. Be born again in another body in another place!”

  He sighed at the uselessness of it all.

  “And don’t hold out the phone,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  “This is what it was all heading for, Claire. Right from the day you held that phone out to me. No way to stop it once it started.”

  I shook my head, was glad I couldn’t speak.

  “I almost had her!” he gasped. “She was right behind me, she was almost here!”

  He shielded his eyes from the sun with his hands.

  “Too much light!” he groaned.

  He plucked the lyre. A low dark note, a high and sweet one.

  “I found Death,” he said. “And I found her, and I almost brought her back.”

  He plucked the strings again and whispered, sang and told the tale.

  “I’ll tell it fast and true,” he said, “I’ll get it out, then I’ll be gone.”

  It’s the tale that I must tell as well.

  But how to tell such a tale that fits with nothing in the world we know? How to tell a tale that’s nothing to do with modern young people like me, like you?

  Go back to the start, Claire. Find the entrance to this part of the tale.

  Go back to being a child. Tell it as a child would, as we did as children all those years ago, when we put on masks and became other than ourselves, when we became deer, mice, babies, old men, goblins, aliens, so that we could tell our tales more easily.

  I’ll make a mask.

  I’ll disappear.

  I’ll put on a mask, and let Orpheus breathe through me, speak through me.

  I’ll make the mask of Orpheus and let him sing his tale through me.

  TWO

  Now, in this house on the banks of the Tyne in the depths of the night, I open the cupboard that’s been in my room as long as I know. I shine a little torch into it. I reach into its depths, past soft toys and long abandoned dolls, forgotten games, and crumpled popup books and picture books, past little plastic beasts and jars of beads and fairies’ wings.

  Here’s that box I put away a hundred years ago.

  The ancient art-and-craft box: sheets of construction paper, balls of yarn, tubes of paint, brushes, tube of glue, little blue plastic stapler, little red plastic scissors.

  I lay them on the little table by the window.

  Take a breath, and now begin.

  Draw the outline of a head on the card. Cut it out.

  Now the mouth, as round and perfect as you can, round as the earth, the sun, the moon. Big enough to sing out songs of joy and howls of awe and to gulp in gasps of fright.

  Now the eyes. Make them big and wide to see into the depths of dark.

  Wrench the tops of the paint tubes off. Squeeze paint onto this plastic tray.

  Soften the brushes.

  Paint the face marble-pale.

  Outline the mouth in vivid red.

  Edge the eyes in black just like the eyes of Orpheus are.

  Now the yarn. Choose the black. Cut it to length. Wrench the top of the glue tube off. Spread a film of glue over the top of the head. Arrange the yarn into the hair of Orpheus and stick it there. Let it fall in waves, like the hair of Orpheus does.

  Hold the mask to your face and look through the eyes and breathe through the mouth.

  Begin to disappear.

  Begin to feel like Orpheus.

  Now take more yarn, long enough to fasten the mask to your head. Staple the ends of the yarn to the edges of the mask. Pull the mask down over your face and let it stay there, just as you did all those years ago, when you became not-you, when you said that you were gone, when you made yourself anew.

  Breathe the air of the night through the wide-open mouth.

  Gaze into the dark of the night through the wide-open eyes.

  And disappear, Claire Wilkinson. You are no more.

  There is only the mask and Orpheus speaking through the mask.

  Claire Wilkinson, be gone.

  Let Orpheus speak.

  Say I am Orpheus.

  I am Orpheus.

  Begone, Claire Wilkinson.

  Again.

  I am Orpheus.

  I…

  I…am…

  THREE

  I am the one with the coat and the hair and the ancient lyre.

  I am the one who can’t be still, who comes and goes, the one who looks away, the one who stays a little while then leaves.

  I’m the one who sings, always and everywhere.

  I met Ella through a mobile phone, but I knew her always and loved her always. I turned up outside school and brought her out. I married her on Bamburgh Beach. She was taken away the very same day on the very same beach.

  I know how close love is to death.

  I know that joy’s twin sister is despair.

  Yes, I wept, of course I did, but what’s the good of tears?

  They drown the dead and keep them dead.

  I did what I do.

  I sang.

  Song opens anything.

  I’m the one who tames the beasts, who brings the birds down from the sky, who makes the water flow uphill. I’m the one who sang my way through darkness down to

  Death to bring her back again.

  You don’t believe me?

  Then listen.

  Let me speak.

  Let me bliddy sing.

  The one called Claire, she never truly understood. Why should she? I was the intruder, the trouble, the thief. I came to take her love away. And then I lost her. Stupid, careless Orpheus. But I knew there’d be a way to find our love again. And Claire showed me where my journey had to start. She took me to the Ouseburn gates. She took me back to Ella as a bairn, Ella as a babe, Ella in the dreams of the time before she was a babe.

  Where better to find the route to Death than through the gate of life?

  That’s the gate. That’s where all the proper journeys start.

  Be gone, Claire, I said to her. Go home and sleep and
lose yourself in dreams, and leave me here to lament.

  I watched her go and darkness fell. I stood in the swirling Ouseburn stream and knew what I must do that night.

  Aye I trembled, aye I shook and aye I was filled with dread.

  Be brave, Orpheus, I told myself. Felt the water singin’ over me. Opened my gob and sang along with it, made my song all watery.

  Simple sounds, simple tunes.

  Gurgles and trickles and splashes and drips.

  I plucked the lyre and the strings hummed like the gates of the Ouseburn hummed.

  Hear them. Hmmmmmmmm.

  I sang my song against the water’s flow. Sent my music back to where the water came from. Sang my sounds into the dark beyond the gates.

  Tek me in! I sang.

  Let me through!

  Pressed me lips to the space between the bars.

  Separate! I sang.

  Break apart and let me through!

  I’m Orpheus.

  Open, locks!

  Separate, bars!

  Slide, you bliddy bolts!

  Welcome me, Darkness!

  Take me, Death!

  Oh, let me in!

  Who knows how long I stood there? Did anybody see? Did anybody know? Mebbe they did and they ran in fright from the singing shadow at the gates. Mebbe they heard and knew just weird yowling. Mebbe they did and were entranced, like the rats that gathered around my feet were entranced, like the cats on the bank that didn’t chase the rats, and the dogs that forgot to chase the cats. They were as enchanted as this water was. It slowed in its flowing. It didn’t want to leave me and flow into the Tyne and to the sea. The water deepened around me, banked up like water’s not supposed to bank up round my calves and feet. I stopped the flowing of the stream with song. It paused to listen to the song of Orpheus.

  Did even the moon come down?

  Did even the stars move closer?

  I didn’t know what words I sang, but I knew what their meaning was.

  Open up and let me through!

  Let me in!

  Some would have battered at the gates. Some would have found a way to tear them down. Orpheus just sang. Sang more sweetly and more yearningly than ever he had before.

  Open, ye gates! Slide, ye bolts! Open, locks!

  Separate, you bliddy bars!

  Oh, open gates and let me in!

  Now! Oh, please do as I ask!

  I’m on my knees.

  Oh please! Oh now!

  And Oh!

  I’m in, I’m through,

  fiends and monsters all around, and plenty of ghosts. But they’re such puny things. Mebbe they’ve been put in here by the dreams of little bairns. Mebbe they’re the weird shifting things that Claire and Ella saw all those years ago. Can’t make them properly out. They slink in the shadows. They yelp and curse in daft efforts to scare.

  They shout from cracks in the wall.

  From the offshoots of the tunnels.

  From the sounds that the water makes.

  Just laugh, Orpheus.

  These aren’t the beasts I’ve come to overcome.

  They threaten nowt. They know nowt. They’re the ones that’s scared. Funny little frail things. They even bring some comfort. They give Orpheus the chance to practise the songs and noises and echoes and enchantments that will cast their spells down here.

  The darkness darkens, the useless monsters call, and Orpheus wades on.

  The city’s all above me as I walk, the city with its homes and offices, its roads. Its churches, ha! Its schools! Ha! The civilized world. Its work and habits and safe routines. Its people tucked up safe in bed, telling tales to each other to tame the night. Its people loving each other as darkness deepens. Then sleep that fills the night with cries and groans and murmurs and snores.

  And infants dream of monsters, the young dream dreams of love, the old dream dreams of being young.

  Do some of the young dream of snakes on dunes?

  Do they dream of what’s happening now below, of Orpheus looking for Ella? Mebbe it’s Claire who dreams this dream, Orpheus wading through this darkness towards Death.

  Dream, Claire.

  I carry your love.

  I sing the journey to Ella Grey.

  I sing the way to Death and Re-Creation.

  The tunnel twists and climbs and dives and curves, and darkness darkens, darkens, darkens. Nowt grows down here, of course. No birds, no spiders, no beetles, no flies. Nowt swims nor slithers around my feet. Even the rats have scattered and gone.

  There’s stones from ancient homes, skeletons of ancient dead, fossils of forgotten beasts, seams of ancient coal.

  I walk and wade alone, go deeper, darker.

  And who are these now, these little pale ones? Oh, they’re bairns. A scattered bunch of little bairns. Don’t they see me? They’re wading their way back to the gates but getting nowhere. Their forward-moving toddling footsteps just move them backwards, into the deeper dark. In reaching for the light, they’re being overwhelmed by dark. Oh, I see. They don’t understand. They don’t know they’re dead. I hesitate. I move towards them, but what’s to say to them?

  I say nowt. I sing to them, lullabies and nursery songs and sounds made by mothers and fathers. But then I stop. This just reminds them all of what’s been lost.

  Nothing to do.

  I turn away from them at last. Mebbe in Death it’s up to the dead to know what they are and why they’re here. But how hard this is for the lost little ones who had such a short time in the light. Will anybody love them, here? Will anybody care for them, down here?

  Just move on, Orpheus.

  Keep on moving, wading, all alone, into the deeper dark.

  And now there’s others. They lean against the curving walls, hunch in the water, trudge painfully against the water’s flow. These are the ones who know their fate. These are the ones who know there’s no way back.

  Do they see me? Mebbe they do and they think I’m just another of the ordinary dead.

  I move on past them, singing.

  I’m the one living thing in the crowd of the dead.

  Orpheus, the singer.

  Orpheus, with his lyre.

  Orpheus, the first ever to come here in order to come out again.

  And now I start to call her name.

  “Ella! Ella! Ella Grey!”

  No answer.

  The trudging dead around me make no noise.

  No sound but water, lyre, song.

  Then a whisper, so soft I’m not sure that I hear it, so intimate it could have come from deep inside myself.

  “TURN BACK, SINGER.”

  I listen closely to the dark.

  “SINGER. YOU MUST TURN BACK.”

  A woman’s whisper, sweet and soft.

  Then silence. I walk on.

  The shades of the dead are all around me now, shuffling onward.

  Don’t be scared, Orpheus.

  Don’t be afraid.

  The tunnels start to multiply.

  New curves and openings and offshoots appear. Shafts and walkways leading downward. Sudden chambers where the music travels far and long before it echoes back again, where the name of Ella travels far and long before it echoes back again. Caverns where water runs down rock and drips from rock.

  “Ella! Ella! Ella Grey!”

  The voice again, just a fraction more than silence.

  “TURN BACK, SINGER. TURN BACK.”

  Don’t be afraid.

  Forward.

  Downward. I leave the Ouseburn far behind. Now there’s strange breathing all around, soft groans and growls and wordless whispers. What’s this? More water. Still, or almost still, it moves across my feet like breath. Beyond it are distant yowlings, muttering and murmurings.

  I start to wade.

  Ankle-deep, shin-deep, knee-deep.

  “YOU!”

  It’s a snarl, a growl, close by.

  “WHAT ARE YOU?”

  I see eyes, teeth. Some great claw or hand ge
ts me by the shoulder. Hot stinking breath falls across my face.

  “WHAT ARE YOU?”

  I’m dragged to it. There’s hanging hair against my skin, some great limb, quivering muscle.

  “SPEAK!” it growls.

  It forces me to my knees into the black and icy water. It looms over me in the dark, darkest of shadows with teeth and eyes and yawning jaws.

  “SPEAK!”

  “I am Orpheus.”

  “WHAT DO YE THINK YOU’RE DIYING DOON HERE?”

  “I lost my love.”

  It roars with laughter, with contempt.

  “YE LOST YER LOVE! OH, POOR THING!”

  “Ella Grey. I’ve come to take her back again.”

  “HAVE YE NOW? LET US HELP YOU, THEN! OH, ELLA! ELLA GREY! IT’S TIME TO GAN YEM, PET!”

  It puts its claws around my throat.

  “O LITTLE STUPID LIVING MAN! I’LL TEAR YE LIMB FROM LIMB RIGHT NOW TO BID YE WELCOME. GIVE US THIS ARM, GIVE US THIS LEG, LET US RIP YOU.”

  I feel its teeth on my shoulder. They tighten. “Let me sing,” I gasp.

  “SING? AYE, SING WHILE I RIP YE. SING WHILE I SUCK YER MARROW AND SLURP YER BLOOD. SING AS I SCATTER YER BITS INTO THE DEEP POOL OF THE DEAD.”

  I lean my head away from its jaws and I sing again. I sing low and soft, high and sweet. It laughs again, it snarls, but softer now.

  “I’LL RIP OOT YER TONGUE AND CRACK YER SKULL. I’LL CHEW YER SKIN AND CRUNCH YER BONES. I’LL MEK YE LIKE YE SHOULD BE WHEN YE’RE DOON AMONG THE DEAD.”

  The great teeth gripping, the wet tongue licking, the loose lips drooling. I sing, I pluck the lyre. The beast, whatever it is, holds me close. Even down in Death, I tell myself, beasts such as this can be calmed.