people seeing. Most people function by shutting almost everything out. Below that, there’s the Web. That’s the memory. That’s where everything is stored, and the Web is a real mess. You can get tangled up in it. A very complex personality is actually difficult to get out of. It can be very scary. Underneath that is the Fire, and that just burns. That’s where the heart is.’
‘How tangled am I?’ Milena asked.
‘You…’ he paused, eyes narrow. ‘You’re very neat, very tidy. But you’re in compartments. There’s parts of you that don’t communicate with each other. So you surprise yourself all the time. It’s an ordered mind. You’ve got an amazing capacity for detail, you’re good at organising. But you could do a lot more than that.’ He smiled at her. ‘You’d make one hell of a Snide, you could take it all in.’
He was being kind. He likes me, thought Milena, seeing him smile.
‘Yes,’ he said, gently.
He loves me. I’m still Heather for him.
He must have heard her, but the smile stayed steady, and the eyes were still full of comprehension.
‘They’ve paid for their tapestry,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go back and finish it. Then we’ll go and meet this Max of yours.’
As they walked back towards the boite, Milena thought: the clouds have cleared for him. She had never seen a change like that, when someone comes whole.
‘Not entirely,’ he said, looking back casually. ‘I’m still a criminal. But I don’t hurt people any more.’ He stopped in front of his door, looking back behind him on the steps. ‘The thing about being a Snide is, if you hurt people, you feel the pain too. So you end up hurting yourself.’ He smiled again, and pulled the door open, and stepped smartly inside.
He sat still again, weaving patterns. There was a warm, approving chuckle.
‘There she is,’ said the Postwoman. ‘There she is, our thread of wool.’
‘Undyed,’ said the dim-eyed man. ‘The kind that holds the whole thing together.’
It was dark, night, when they got back to the Zoo. They found Max rehearsing the orchestra for
Then he turned, and nodded, and the music began.
‘Hoo boy!’ Al exclaimed. ‘Oh, poor baby.’
‘What? What can you Read?’ Milena asked.
‘Sssh,’ said Al.
The music began. It sidled forwards, uncomfortable, disjointed, angular, expressing alienation. Max conducted, making flowing, muscular gestures. Al’s face seemed to freeze, fixed on him, watching him, as if he were a flickering light.
‘He can feel you at his back,’ murmured Al, without moving his head.
Suddenly Max made a messy, hurried wave in the air. No, no, no, said his hands. The orchestra stopped playing by degrees, the music trailing off into disorder, the musicians looking up in wonder. Max turned around. He looked at Milena. ‘Do you have to be here now?’ he said. His voice was quiet but it still managed somehow to penetrate the curtain of air between them.
‘We’re just listening to the music, Max,’ said Milena. ‘We’d like to talk to you. We’ll wait outside for you.’
‘I’m busy this evening, I can’t.’
‘When are you free?’
‘Talk to me later!’
‘We can never find you, Max. One week, Max. Remember? Two days of it have gone, Max. We need to find the thing that you lost, Max. This gentleman can help you.’ The musicians began to stir in their seats and murmur to each other.
‘Stop,’ said Al. ‘Stop now. Or you’ll kill him.’
‘We will wait outside,’ said Milena, gathering up her coat.
They walked in silence up the corridor.
‘Whoo!’ said Al, expelling air as the doors swung shut behind them.
‘What did you get?’ Milena asked.
Al scowled. The music began again, dimly, behind the doors. ‘It’s like this. He makes a motion one way.’ Al moved his hand like an arrow. ‘But then the motion deserts him, and he’s left stranded, so he makes another motion this way, in another direction, and that stops because he then remembers he meant to go the other way. There’s no centre to give him any weight.’
The music wheedled through the door, sad, aching, the music of ghosts.
‘He’s weightless,’ said Al. ‘There’s no up or down for him. He’s totally lost. Like some poor, huge, overgrown child. He’s been unable to move anywhere since childhood. He was stunned in childhood.’
The music stopped again. They could dimly hear Max talking.
‘That’s why he likes music. It’s all pre-written, it’s all rehearsed. It all flows in one direction for him. It’s the only time he gets any flow. Most of us go swimming through time, with the current like a fish. He just gets lost in it. Except when there’s music. As long as the music doesn’t surprise him. So.’ Al looked up at Milena with an odd smile. ‘He hates new music’
The problem again was time. The music started up again.
Al was still looking at Milena with an odd smile. ‘He hates you. He hates the Comedy. He can’t bear either of you. You make him feel so small.’
After the rehearsal, Max saw them outside in the corridor. The angular violinist was with him and she was pale with fury.
‘How could you do that to me!’ Max said, fists clenched and pale, mouth stretched and desperate.
‘Who are you?’ the violinist demanded, glaring at Milena. ‘Who are you to interrupt a rehearsal like that? This is a very talented musician, and you’re making him very unhappy.’
‘He’s made me very unhappy,’ said Milena. ‘He’s lost the entire score of an opera. The only copy.’
‘Don’t!’ he said, his pink fists bobbing up and down. He shuffled, knees bent, in the posture of weightlessness.
‘He’s lost it,’ said Milena, ‘because it makes him realise that he could never write it himself.’
‘Milena,’ warned the Snide.
The woman smiled bitterly. ‘A new opera,’ she said. ‘God. We get one of those a month. No one can write opera any more. They’re all written by ambitious stumblebums like you, who have no more appreciation than…’ the woman broke off. ‘Oooh! You should be grateful that someone like Max even looked at it.’
‘We don’t want to hurt him,’ said the Snide. ‘Not at all. We would just like a few moments alone with him.’ Al took Max’s hands, and began to coax the fists to uncurl. ‘I’d just like to go back onto the stage with him. Where the instruments were played. The beautiful violins, the harps. The oboes. The place will still be warm from the music. We’ll go there, and you can tell me all about the music you love. Eh, Max? Maybe that will help you remember.’
‘Will she be there?’ Max demanded, looking in terror at Milena. It was as if Milena were his mother, as if he were a naughty little boy.
‘No, Max,’ said the Snide. ‘Just you and me.’
‘If anything happens to him,’ said the violinist, and jabbed a finger towards Milena, ‘I’ll hold you responsible. Max. I’ll be waiting downstairs.’
‘And I’ll be waiting here,’ said Milena.
Max and the Snide went back down, into the theatre. And Milena waited. How long? What was time? She got to know her own fingernails better. They were bitten, right down to the quick. Please, she prayed, though she knew of nothing to pray to, please let him remember.
Finally the door opened, and Al came out, supporting Max. Max was sobbing, rubbing fat hands into his eyes. Milena looked into Al’s eyes.
‘We found it,’ said Al.
Max broke free and began to run. He ran for the stairs. ‘Alice! Alice!’ he cried, stumbling down the steps, covering his face.
