Doctor Who_ Rags - Mick Lewis [76]
And as he spoke in rich, melodious tones, quaint and rustic, eloquent and sharp, Jo was a pupil again and, for the first time ever, she was actually listening.
Sin was a child too, and his words transported her to some innocent place she had long since forgotten existed. Although most of his words had little direct pertinence for her, she 183
interpreted them in her own way, and found peace and contentment in them, and that was enough. She remembered the time he had entered the Devil’s Elbow, she remembered the child beside the stream reaching for him; most of all she remembered what it was like to be... happy?
And Jimmy the Wild, he was thinking of violence, and clashes, and rage, and yet it was all so good, because for once he was revelling in strife that was righteous strife; he was the hero in a modern morality tale where the coppers really did deserve to take a dive in the final reel. He felt vindicated for all his past misdeeds and, yes, he was the rebel with the bloody greatest cause.
And Nick... Nick listened quietly, chin on his knees, hands clasped around his legs.
And the mummer talked.
And talked...
And the camp fire crackled and popped, and the moon grinned as it rode through the night, and all around the field of stones the travellers were at peace.
‘Our journey has reached its end,’ the mummer announced, and his fingers slid over the strings of his lute and notes trickled sharp and cold into the fire-lit night. Some distance away at the edge of the field the police officers and local villagers watched from behind the (safety?) of the wire fence, like cardboard characters that did not move.
‘This journey began in violence, and now it must end the same way. But freedom was always bought with violence, were it not?’
With that, the mummer tossed the lute into the fire and spread his hands wide, grubby fingers poking through leather mittens like straw through the gloves of a scarecrow. The strings popped with discordant squeals and the wood warped to black.
‘This here journey began for I in the Bogside; soldiers firing at will - as soldiers are wont - and the common people falling. But falling for truth even as they bled. This journey continued as I watched police clash with thugs and believers in racial freedom 184
at the burgh of Lewisham; names and places change, but the noble riots go on, and I am with them. This is your age, my children. The age of riot.see, I have roamed at the site you call Notting Hill and seen the good blood in the streets, though I have wandered there before the first bricks were laid; I ‘ave been to all the troubled areas, seen it all: the fury, the hope, the belief. Most recently, I strolled beside your princess (whose princess? not mine, will you have her either?) as the gun flared in One’s blue-blooded hand, severing the last link between rich and poor, and with five bullets destroyed the future of this detestable monarchy.
Now there is a royal public hanging... rejoice.’
The mummer bared his teeth in a wolfish grin. The eyes held all these histories inside them, and revelled in their violence.
‘But the march is over and the work almost done...’
Yet there came a challenger to the storyteller: a lone voice from the group of friends huddled around the fire. A quiet, shaking voice, and one which made Sin stare with hate, Jo with contempt, and Jimmy with bafflement.
‘And you’ve done a good job, Mr Mummer.’
Nick was looking up now, arms still folded round his knees. His eyes were scared, but resolute. The clouds had gone from them, though his face