Another little set of scenes from Mick Carpenter's life, inspired by songs picked at random. At the beginning, I feared I'd end up with ten Irish-style dancing pieces, but thankfully, my iPod changed its mind and gave me a little more variety.
1. Bellowhead: Broomfield Hill
Rosie and I exchanged looks across the crowded room as she walked back in from her trip to the ladies', and she nodded at the door when she caught my grimace. It was very hot and the air was thick with smoke and stale drink and a hundred people sweaty with dancing, and she knew I craved a break.
She grinned as I jostled my way through the crowd and grabbed her hand, pulling her outside. The door banged shut behind us, but the music was still well audible. She drew me through a narrow alley into the back yard where a surprisingly big tree stood and led me in another swirling dance around its thick trunk until we fell into the sparse grass, side by side, and watched the starry night skies spin dizzily above us.
"I love ya, Rosie", I whispered, and I knew she was smiling in the dark.
2. Tara: The Charladies' Ball
"A costume ball", I groaned. "I still can't believe you're doing this to me."
"Stop complaining. You're gorgeous, fisherman." Rosie gave me a peck on the cheek and ruffled my hair. "Straight off the boat to sell your finest lobster!"
I had refused to dress up in something ridiculous but grudgingly agreed to wear a pair of faded working pants and a heavy blue sweater and my workboots. I had no idea how I was going to dance in them, but Rosie had laughed off my concerns and assured me I'd certainly have a good time.
And in the end, I found she was right.
3. Young Rebel Set: Won't Get Up Again
"I won't get up again", I murmured in my half-sleep, pulling the sheets over my head to block out the world that kept intruding on me. Couldn't they simply leave me alone and go away with all their compassion and their pills and their good advice? No matter how often they'd tell me I would be fine, I just knew I wouldn't, not like this, not with my leg gone, and my love, and pretty much my whole life.
"Oh yes, you will!" Amelia snatched the sheet away and rolled her eyes at my furious protest.
4. Elton John: Emily
Grandma began getting a little funny after Grandpa went. Not demented, not even extraordinarily addled, but her energy drained away, that fearful force that had made her appear like a much younger woman despite her grey hair and her fragile, wrinkled body. Her voice was just a little lower, her shoulders sagged just a tiny bit, and her clothes hung about her a little more shapelessly than usual.
They had been the two halves of one single being, two pairs of feet marching to the same beat, two hearts beating in the same rhythm. They had been very different personalities, but they had complemented each other so wonderfully that you could not imagine one without the other close by.
She didn't allow herself to get all swallowed up by her grief, she kept on for my sake and for the sake of his memory, but she just was not the same any longer.
5. Placebo: Song To Say Goodbye
I had not said a single nasty word to her face, but once I had left, I started cursing Rosie silently, called her anything that came to mind, but it didn't help.
I tried to conjure up hot anger to consume that little clump of emptiness that remained stuck in my chest and choked my throat, but I could never stoke that fire quite enough that it burned up that twisted feeling of rejection and disappointment deep within me.
6. Lisa Loeb: Stay (I Missed You)
I knew I had been behaving like an asshole. She was only meaning well and just as unfit as I was to deal with that kind of life that was all I had left.
I had never been one to say sorry easily, but it had been unfair to say all these things to her. It wasn't Evelyn's fault that I had ended up like this, and despite all my misgivings, despite what I'd yelled at her earlier, I certainly didn't want her to go.
"Please stay", I whispered.
7. Enya: Fallen Embers
She shifted lazily to push her face into the crook of my neck, and I held her there for a moment before I drew back a little to look at her in the firelight.
I wasn't quite sure how we had come to undress on the sofa by the fire after a lot of red wine, but I enjoyed this moment immensely.
8. Leonard Cohen: True Love Leaves No Traces
"I can't remember when we last had the house all to ourselves for long enough to do this without fear of intruders", she mumbled into my chest.
"I can't either. Before Annie was born, I guess", I replied and tickled her side very lightly with the tip of my index finger. With two clever schoolkids in the home, you don't want to take any chances of being spied on, but tonight, both of them were staying with friends, and we had turned in early to take advantage of that brief episode of freedom.
She was still as beautiful, and as good at it, as she had been all those years ago.
9. Leonard Cohen: Master Song
Sunlight coming through the trees, speckling our faces with dark spots of shadow.
A tall man swearing us in to give our best.
The straps of my pack chafing at my shoulders, the weight of my gun at my side.
Pale faces with almond-shaped eyes, young, babyish even, and all the more fiercely determined for it.
A sharp needle of blood-red pain.
White, misty, yellowish white everywhere when I opened my eyes a crack.
The welcoming darkness when I closed them again.
A dark low moan of a voice I thought I knew.
Life oozing out of a young man's torn body.
A kindly face, brown hair, hazel eyes, white cap.
The relief of the needle in my arm that brought back comforting nothingness and ended all those jumbled images.
10. The Byrds: Mr. Tambourine Man
I smiled when I saw he was there again, in his tatty old suit, his hat that almost came apart at the brim upturned on the pavement before him.
Many passersby had nothing but contempt for him and eyed him suspiciously, but a little girl beamed at him as she threw a small coin into the hat that was pitifully empty.
I slipped him a fiver, and he gave me a look that proved we were of the same kind, vagabonds at heart, with a deep love for music.