Introduction:
After finishing Strange as Angels, I took a long break from writing. I began to feel like I would never find anything that excited me as much as that story had, but I did.
It happened one day when I was watching the 10th Anniversary Concert recording of Les Miserables and... long story short, I got very excited. I had always loved the musical, but now I'm an adult, I found my attention on a different character to the one I fancied when I was a teenager! I had dreams about stars and leather coats and tophats...
This is for all you readers who also get a vaginal tingle when Phillip Quast hits the low note in "you'll wear a different chain". ;-)
Clumbs xx
If Grace had to listen to one more spoilt teenage girl screaming 'Defying Gravity', she was going to jump off the top of Christchurch.
"I think I'll tryyyyyy defyyyyying gravityy…"
She winced as her current client howled her way through the chorus. Nevertheless, she kept her head down and her eyes on the piano keys.
"Remember to open up those vowels, Allana."
"Kiss me goodbyeee I'm defy-iiiiiing gravityy…"
"Good breath control."
"And you can't puuuulll meeee doooown."
Another flat, wail of a note had her grimacing again.
She tried to make her mind go somewhere else for the remainder of the lesson. Let her hands do the work and her voice spill out some random instruction every so often. It was all money, at the end of the day. And whatever her client wanted to sing, they got.
When Allana had murdered a few more Ariana Grande songs and screeched her way through 'Part of Your World', Grace finally began packing up.
She was just stuffing the last of her sheet-music books away into her satchel when Allana's mother came waltzing into the room. Barefoot, and covered from head to toe in The White Company, she advanced on Grace with that air of threatening airiness that only rich, white, yummy-mummys had.
"How did my little darling get on today?" She asked, placing a mug of detox tea down on the lid of the piano.
Grace tried to suppress another wince. A beautiful instrument like the one The Middleditchs had in their front room should never be disrespected like that.
"Wonderfully." She replied, trying to sound like she wasn't forcing her words out through clenched teeth. "She has a very…unique tone."
"That's my Allana." The woman crooned, fiddling with her necklace of African beads.
Thank god this house is huge. Grace thought. If she couldn't hear how awful her kid was, then she must have been all the way over in her 'yoga studio'.
"So, it's £45 for the session today…" Grace said a little awkwardly. She always hated this part of her private lessons; the actual asking for cash.
"Oh, of course." The mother said, fishing a few notes from out of her bra.
When she handed them to Grace, they were warm and a little bit damp.
"Same time next week, then?" Grace asked, trying to remember if she still had that tube of anti-bac hand gel in her bag.
"Oh, yes please." Allana replied. "Aurora said that she's learning some 'Hamilton' songs with her voice teacher, and I think I have the 'Satisfied' rap breakdown almost learnt by heart."
"Ohhh…great."
Grace forced her biggest grin and moved to leave.
"Thank you once again, Grace." The girl's mother said, walking her towards the door.
The house was as cream and vapid as the woman was: nondescript watercolours of some Italian city on the walls, a ceramic vase filled with dried palm leaves on every surface, a springy vanilla carpet that was scrubbed immaculate every day by their cleaning-lady… The irony was that all of the houses of her singing students looked like this. Everything directly out of the M&S catalogue. None of them had an ounce of creativity or uniqueness about them.
Every single one had the same off-white decor, the same private-school Urban Outfitters daughter, the same Porsche Cheyenne parked out the front, and the same husband called either Roger or Phillip or Norm or…
"Oh, Richard wanted me to pass on his condolences to you." Mrs Middleditch said.
Grace tensed up. She went a bit sweaty and cast her eyes to the cream-carpet below.
"Oh, did David finally tell him that we split up then?"
"Well, yes. Only because I told Rich to invite you both to Spanish Tapas night at Quad."
"Right…"
Allana had been one of Grace's longest-running students. Purely because her boyfriend - well, ex-boyfriend, now - worked in the same lab as the girl's father and he'd casually mentioned one day that his daughter was looking for private voice lessons. David thought he'd really done Grace a favour when he'd passed on her details to the Middleditchs. Her ears would disagree.
"How are you, dear?" Mrs Middleditch asked with a sympathetic tilt of her head.
"Fine. absolutely fine." Grace answered, a little too quickly.
Mrs Middleditch tutted and gave Grace a patronising arm rub.
"It's always difficult. A breakup. They say the body treats it like grief, don't you know."
Grace was poised with one arm on the front door knob. She nodded her head and gave a vague 'mmm' of agreement. She didn't really want to talk about it. Not with Mrs Middleditch.
"You should come to my yoga lessons! Help release some of those negative toxins in your body. Bad experiences can really block your anahata chakra."
"I'm fine. Thank you. Really." Grace said again, opening the front door. "It's really very sweet of you to think of me, but I'm okay. It was a mutual thing."
"It was?"
Grace nodded her head.
Yes, we both mutually decided that it was best he moved out. Otherwise I would have kicked his balls into his throat. She thought.
"Oh, good. Because when we knew you two weren't together anymore, we invited David's new partner to tapas - Natalie. Do you know her?"
The knife twisted deep into her guts. Grace swallowed hard and manoeuvred herself out the door.
"Yes, I know her." she said shortly.
Grace turned away from the cream-coated house and marched down the gravel drive.
"I'll see you both next week." she called back, not wanting to show Mrs Middleditch the tears in her eyes.
Swiftly grabbing her olive-green bike from where she'd leant it against the garden wall, Grace slung her bag into the wicker basket and pedalled hard down the Woodstock Road, her jaw clenched tight. All of the other posh houses on the road floated past her in a blur. She passed the homes of many of her other students, but they may as well have been a hundred miles away. Her bike spokes ticked rhythmically as she kept a brisk pace, and it took a good fifteen minutes of hard pedalling before she began to feel calm again.
It was a long ride back to her flat. The suburbs gave way to the city centre of Oxford and Grace found that she was soon dodging and weaving her way around tourists. They looked up at the dreaming spires and warm sandstone, she looked rigidly ahead.
She envied the tourists a little bit. They got to see Oxford through fresh eyes. All its hidden mystery and wonderful contradictions. Oxford was a place of medieval modernity, open secrets, exclusive inclusivity. But Grace had rather grown to resent the place.
Break-ups do that. She thought, ringing her bell at a tourist in the middle of the cycle-path.
She scowled at them and stopped with a skid.
"Could you watch where you're standing, please?!" She called at them.
But the tourist wasn't paying her any mind. Instead he was looking at a street performer, who had gathered quite the crowd around him.
Grace pushed herself up, out of her bike seat, and craned her neck to peer over the heads of the tourists. A melodic and theatrical voice floated over to her, from the centre of the throng of onlookers:
"There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away!"
Grace groaned. She knew this performer. He'd been hanging around the streets near Magdalene Church for quite a few weeks now, doing his little 'routine' for the crowds.
"Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry!"
The performer roared mightily his words of poetry. Grace caught an air of arcane madness in his eyes as he cast them, black and mercurial, over the crowd. He must have been homeless, for his clothes and hair were a wild mess. And he was thin. Almost painfully thin, for a man who commanded such presence with his voice.
The students who lived in Oxford had come to call him the Story Teller.
That's how he seemed to earn his keep. A Keats poem on this occasion, an extract from Homer on another. A touch of Robert Burns on one day, a splash of Maya Angelou the next. He could only have survived in a place like Oxford. A place that prides itself on learnedness and literature. Any other city in the UK, and he would have had his shins kicked in.
"This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll –
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human Soul!"
The Story Teller finished with a flurry of his arm and the crowds of tourists around him showered him with applause. For a hair-raising moment, Grace thought the homeless man fixed her in his mad stare. He bowed, deep and low, and Grace suddenly felt uncomfortable.
She mounted her bike and pedalled on, chalking this up to yet another bad experience.
The summer of 2023 had not been kind to Grace.
Whilst the world around her seemed to be losing its mind over Barbenheimer and Taylor Swift tickets, she'd spent much of it curled up in her flat in Jericho.
As she rode her bike up to her front door, Grace almost wanted to turn around and go somewhere else. Anywhere else. Just for a little bit longer. She was so sick of looking at the inside four walls that it almost made her feel ill thinking about stepping through the door. But she took a deep breath and pulled out her keys. She didn't have time to waste a few hours in her favourite cafe or walk herself around the covered market window-shopping; she had an appointment to keep.
An appointment she was dreading, but especially after this morning, she was going to force herself to go.
Dirty dishes were piled high by her sink, her bedsheets were stained with the remains of last-night's takeaway, the cat's litter tray needed changing, and she'd forgotten when she'd last pulled back her curtains and let some light into the place.
She could almost see the ghost of herself outlined on the old leather couch in her living room; The place where she'd spent most of the last few months. Mindlessly scrolling on her phone, watching her so-called 'friends' living it up in Santorini, Tenerife, Cyprus... All of them enjoying the European heatwave whilst she rotted underneath her duvet. So many of them had been all smiles and promises in the first weeks of the breakup. But now almost six months had gone by, every single one of them seemed to be missing in action when she felt alone and miserable. The only one that seemed to give a living shit about her at all was…
Her phone started buzzing. She fumbled in her pocket, dragging her iPhone out of her jeans, and up flashed 'Mum Mobile'.
She groaned to herself, thinking about whether to answer or not. Eventually, she just let the call ring out, placing the phone down on the kitchen table whilst she looked for what she had come back for. She'd text her mum later, telling her she'd been in back-to-back singing lessons and that everything was okay, she was okay, Wilfred her cat was okay, the flat was okay, everything was okay.
Her mother lived some four hours away in the Lake District. After the break up, Grace has gone there for a few weeks to try and calm herself and relax amongst the hills around Ambleside, but as soon as Grace had come back to Oxford her mother had worried for her.
She somehow knew, despite Grace's white-lies, just how desperately lonely she was, just how much her life had gone to ruin, just how acutely miserable she felt. She even somehow knew when Grace had had another sleepless night, a phone call buzzing through bright and early at 5:30 in the morning, just when the sickly sun was rising in the sky. Every single time, Grace would assure her that she was alright and try not to burst into tears on the phone with her. She knew just how much her mother hated herself for being four ridiculous hours away from her daughter in her hour of need. Her stepfather had hinted to her of the sleepless nights her mother had had, worrying over her. She didn't want to add to her anguish. So every call, every text, she put on a brave face, smiled and told her mum that everything was just dandy.
Grace finally found what she'd been looking for. She heaved up a cardboard box of David's things- research papers, textbooks, lecture notes- and hauled them up into her arms. In the scant few texts she'd shared with her ex since he'd moved out, he'd asked for the last of his things back.
"Very important. "Apparently.
"Crucial to my research." So he said.
"You could leave them with Natalie-"
His cataloguer, who had worked in David's lab, alongside him, with him, ever since Grace had known David.
"-if you don't want to see me."
"No thanks. I'll meet you in the college cafeteria," had been her taut reply.
She almost ran from the flat, David's box in her arms, desperate to be out of there as quickly as possible.
It was a struggle to fit all of his stuff into the wicker basket at the front of her bike, but with a bit of smooshing she managed to get everything down. Before she left, she cast her eyes about for Wilf, just to make sure he wasn't waiting to be let in after a night of hunting mice and shagging lady-cats. He was nowhere to be found. He hadn't had his breakfast, but it didn't matter. More than once she'd spied Wilf having his fourth or fifth meal of the day in the other houses on her street in Jericho. The boy was a serial cheater. Grace laughed; her cat had more of a social life than she did.
She pushed off, and away she went, back into the swerving minefield of Oxford city-centre.
Balliol College was an old, mediaeval building where biochemic and medical sciences were studied. It was the absolute textbook definition of an Oxford college with its warm yellowy stone, green grassy interior quad, and brilliant people doing brilliant things milling about inside. When Grace approached the main gate, she walked her bike up to the guardsman with a faint smile.
"Alright, love?" The guardsman said, looking up from his copy of The Times. "I…er… didn't think I'd be seeing you here again."
"Nice to see you too, Pete." Grace responded sarcastically.
Pete sighed and rolled his eyes. It was right, of course, that it was a surprise to find her here again. The last time she'd come to Balliol, it was to give David a surprise lunch that Grace wanted to drop off for him personally. Dim sum, from the local market. But when Pete had waved her past the college gate, the next thing he'd heard, two minutes later, was an almighty racket up in the labs. Someone smashing glass and screaming bloody murder.
Of course, it had all been because Grace had walked in on David and Natalie fucking in the chemical storage closet.
"You aren't… gonna cause me any trouble this time, are you?" Pete asked her gently.
Of course the guardsman had been sympathetic to her when he'd found out the reason for the ruckus, but nevertheless, Grace had last left Balliol by being frogmarched out, and with a polite request to not come back.
"I promise." Grace replied, putting a hand on her heart. "No trouble from me."
"Cause if something does happen, and my manager finds out I let you in-"
"Pete, it's fine. I can behave myself."
"Alright…" the guardsman sighed.
Grace gave him a nod and carried David's stuff into the heart of the college.
"Oh by the way…" Pete called to her.
Grace stopped and whirled around to face him.
"I told the cleaning staff what happened. And yesterday Magda told me they've all been spitting in their coffee pot."
Grace smirked. A genuine smile that took her quite by surprise; she couldn't remember the last time she'd genuinely smiled. She turned from Pete and walked on towards the cafeteria, taking that small little victory to her heart.
David was, unfortunately, already waiting for her in the cafeteria. No time to steel herself, no time to prepare her heart. There he was, hunched over a table, still in his lab coat, looking like he was waiting for his executioner. He saw her as she began making her way over to him, looking up at her with those dark, shifty brown eyes of his.
They both said nothing as Grace took her seat opposite him. As she sat down, she noticed his shoelaces were untied and she had to swallow a tut. David: the thirty-eight year old adult who had a PHD in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, didn't know how to tie his own shoelaces. There were a lot of people like that in Oxford: Fantastically clever, but perhaps practically lacking. Professors who couldn't tell the time on an analogue clock, Fellowes who never learnt how to ride a bike, and PHD students who, apparently, still hadn't learnt how to tie their own shoelaces.
David's whole face was taut and awkward. His broad jaw was fused shut and Grace could see every muscle twinging beneath his patchy, unkempt stubble. He tucked his similarly unkempt black hair behind his ear: a nervous twitch of his that she hadn't forgotten.
He opened his mouth… and closed it again.
Grace huffed and rolled her eyes.
"Jesus, David, you could at least start with a 'thank you'."
"Thank you." He said quickly. "Thank you for returning these. I appreciate it."
Silence settled between them again for what felt like an age. Grace looked at her hands. David finally felt brave enough to look into her face.
"How have you-"
"Don't you dare ask me that. Not you." Grace said brusquely.
His eyes popped and he backed away from her a little.
"Everyone asks me that bloody question." She hissed out. "And they don't really care. Least of all, you."
David winced. Physically winced. And there was silence between them for a moment.
"Grace…" David sighed. "I do still care about you."
"Oh how magnanimous of you. Didn't really have much of a care for me when you were balls-deep in Natalie though, did you."
A few disdainful looks from the other scientists in the cafeteria were cast at David and Grace. David went the colour of merlot under his white jacket.
"Do you mind?!" He asked in a whisper. "I still have to work with these people. And I'd rather not that they-"
"Know who you really are?" Grace asked tartly. "I wouldn't worry, Dave. Curie had affairs with married men, Oppenheimer fucked anything that was communist and moving, even Einstein had a harem of women at his disposal. If anything, you're right on track for that 'Nobel prize before I'm forty' that you so desperately want. I'll just be a small footnote in your autobiography, I'm sure."
"Is this what you came here to do, then?" David asked. "To have another go at me? I told you I was sorry. I told you a thousand times."
"You could tell me you were sorry a million times. Every day for the rest of your life! And it wouldn't be enough."
"So why not just leave my stuff at the reception desk? Why see me at all?"
Grace swallowed hard. When she looked inward, why had she come to meet David? She didn't still love him. No, that ship had sailed long ago. She hadn't come to take one last chunk out of him, despite the way the conversation had gone. She was hardly in a position to gloat and show off just how well she was handling the breakup.
"I don't know." She answered honestly. "I suppose… all good stories need an end. And I guess… I wanted… I needed to bookend you and me."
David said nothing in reply, merely looked at his hands again and tucked his hair behind his ear. Whatever the motivation behind this meeting, it had left a sour taste in her mouth and Grace suddenly decided that she'd rather be anywhere but here. That 'bookend' to their story seemed to be writing itself in her head, and she found she didn't like how she was coming across in it:
"Grace Beaumont, the Nobel-Prize winner's first serious girlfriend, was an emotionally volatile woman. Having lashed out on the instruments of his research when she discovered his infidelity, she continued to verbally berate him long after the relationship was over. They last saw each other in 2023 and ended on bad terms."
She stood up and moved to leave. But after two paces she halted and turned back to him.
"Your shoes are untied, by the way."
David looked down at his feet, and then back to her, at a loss for words.
"And I'd maybe get another coffee pot." She mumbled, turning away from him with a sly smirk.
"What?"
"Nothing."
With that, she turned and left.
She gave Pete a thumbs up as she collected her bike and passed through the gatehouse. He gave her a thumbs up back and went back to The Times. The thought of going back to her flat again turned Grace's stomach. She thought of somewhere, anywhere in this city that she could go to waste a few more hours and decided on Blackwells.
Grace chained up her bike near the Bodlean Library and crossed the road in a hurry, desperate to get that meeting with David behind her. Blackwells was one of the last bastions of independent bookshops, not just in Oxford, but in the UK. It was a real treat for lovers of literature, sporting not just three floors of modern fiction and non-fiction, but a subterranean floor of academic works as well. But Grace had never really been a big reader. The reason why she loved Blackwells was because they had an entirely different premises, two doors down from the main collection, completely for music.
Her visit today was already looking promising. Already, she could see sheet music for Mozart's Requiem in the window. She adored Mozart. He was her favourite classical composer. Back in her own days at university here she had been a part of many a chamber Orchestra, playing the greats: Beethoven, Brahms, Bach, Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Puccini, Vivaldi…She'd also somehow found her way into one or two cover bands, and for a short time she'd earned herself a bit of money on the wedding-scene playing everything from Cab Calloway to The 1975.
There were already one or two musicians perusing the shelves when the door dinged shut behind her. A couple of names instantly caught her eye and she began browsing the sheet music books herself.
Minutes passed by like this. Lost in the music, hopping from one song or symphony to the next. Soon, she had an armful of potential purchases. During her perusing she did see the music book for 'Hamilton', and with a heavy groan, she added it to her buying pile. She wanted to keep her clients happy, after all.
'Satisfied', if you will. She thought to herself with a knowing smirk.
A good while later, she left Blackwells. But she didn't have far to go, because just next door was one of her favourite pubs in all of Oxford.
The White Horse was quiet this time of day. As one of the smallest pubs in the city, there wasn't much room for hundreds of patrons, but today, there was freedom of choice for where to snuggle up for the afternoon.
She grabbed herself a pint of cider and a packet of crisps, opting for one of the cosy window seats. Once she'd settled in, she started tucking in to her purchases. She began with the Mozart.
Her favourite movement was the Confutatis in the Requiem Mass. She flicked through a few pages and found it, those wonderful black dots and lines translating into a beautiful choral onslaught in her mind. Her hand hovered by her side and she traced out the piano baseline as she read.
But even lost in her music, David still came screaming back into her thoughts.
The last time you heard this, you were with David.
Her hand froze in mid-air.
Yes. It had been just before last Christmas. Grace had desperately wanted to go to a performance of the Requiem Mass at Christchurch Cathedral. David had treated it like a dentist's appointment. Huffing, sighing, slumped in his chair, arms crossed. Grace had been baffled; she didn't know how anyone could remain unmoved by Mozart. It had caused a huge, rip-roaring argument between them. David had said 'music to me is like biochemistry to you. You don't understand half the stuff I say about my work. I don't understand your stuff'.
Your stuff. As if music wasn't universal. As if everyone didn't understand the language of melody.
She shook her head brusquely, banishing all thoughts of David from her head. Even though she'd been trying to do that for six months… Memories of their meeting earlier came back to her in sharp jabs and painful squeezes of emotion and she suddenly felt miserable and black again.
Things like this had been happening to her all summer. She'd see something small, hear something inconsequential, and it would upturn a whole load of memories of her and David. Woodlice scuttling out from under an uprooted rock. And there were lots of memories hidden everywhere.
Three years worth of memories.
On every street corner, in the taste of certain foods, in a smell she caught a faint whiff of on the bus home, even in her beloved music.
Perhaps that's why she'd gone to see David. Perhaps hoping that the onslaught of memories would stop if she saw him one last time. But it hadn't.
Would it ever? Heaven forfend if she actually ever ran into David or Natalie themselves. Would life ever let her live it again? Without being chased from place to place? Haunted by every little taste and scent and sound that reminded her of him? The mere dropping of his name had almost had her in tears with Mrs Middleditch earlier.
Was David forever going to be a demon she couldn't exorcise from her head?
Was she doomed to become a living footnote in someone else's story.
Almost on cue, up flashed a message on her phone.
"Hi bab, just checking in to make sure you're ok? I went to a meet-and-greet for Paddy and Max yesterday up in Grasmere…"
Paddy and Max being two springer spaniels Grace's mother followed on Instagram. She only followed two accounts on Instagram: Grace herself, and Paddy and Max.
"...They were ever so lovely! Their owner told me they're due to put out a tea towel on their online shop at Xmas! So, if you must spend your money on presents for me, I wouldn't mind one of them. xx"
Before she realised it, Grace was smiling down at her phone. Her Mum had somehow done it again. She'd known that Grace needed some cheering up and had sent a good bit of distraction.
Grace opened up her notes app and wrote a reminder: 'Xmas present Mum: Paddy and Max tea towel'. And Grace didn't mind that Christmas was over four months away…
She typed out a response for her Mum, apologising for missing her call earlier and, indeed, giving her that quick fib she'd rehearsed earlier about being in back to back lessons all day. She mentioned nothing of her meeting with David, nor the little sulk she was having right now in The White Horse. They passed a few light-hearted messages back and forth, and Grace promised her Mum a call tomorrow, hoping that she'd be in a slightly better mood then.
Although, when she checked herself, she realised she was feeling marginally better now. Her Mum's messages had well and truly pulled her out of the depressive spiral she'd been in, and she realised she was starving…
Grace made her way back up to the bar and ordered herself another pint of cider and a bowl of fully-loaded nachos. When she sat back down in her booth, she felt brave enough again to open another of her music book purchases.
Screw David. She thought resolutely. I had music before him, and I'll have music after him too.
This time, she opted for 'The Billy Joel Songbook' and soon enough, she was lost in the melodies and waving her hand on her imaginary piano once again.
A few hours later, Grace left The White Horse to discover that afternoon had turned to night. Despite the last of the summer weather, there was a definite chill in the air as she crossed the road.
Her head was pleasantly fuzzy and she'd made her way through quite a fair number of pints over the course of the evening. She'd decided to stop when she'd made her way to the end of her fifth book purchase of the day, only to look up from the music and realised there were six empty pint glasses on her table…
Grace had learnt the hard way just how badly biking home when you're drunk could end; She'd ended her freshers week in Oxford with a fractured wrist after a Tesco's truck had turned into her cycle path. So, as she searched around the Bodlean Library for her bike, she vowed that she was going to walk it home. She had just finished packing the last of her music books into her basket when she heard some faint noises in the air…
At first they kind of sounded like grunts, followed by something dull and wet.
Whatever they were, Grace found herself searching around the deserted cobbled streets in search of the source.
She peered into corners and followed the curve of the library. All the while, she followed the noises. Her heart quickened as the dull thuds became sharper and the grunts became cries of pain. And she realised, with sinking dread, that she could hear someone being assaulted.
Grace's feet seemed to be moving without her telling them to. Her head told her to run away as far as she could, but her body was compelling her towards the noise. Soon she could identify swearing and flesh hitting flesh in the noises, and she still was somehow surprised when she rounded a corner and found two tracksuit thugs kicking a man on the floor.
She watched in horror for a split second, as one of the muggers planted his foot square in their victim's stomach. The cry that leeched out of him split the air.
"We watched you busking all day, you fucking skat! You must have more!"
The writhing body on the floor rolled over and Grace saw the Story Teller moaning up at the sky.
"Give us your fucking change, bro!"
The other mugger kicked the Story Teller in the jaw and he spat blood all over the cobbles.
"Hey…! HEY..!" Grace shouted.
Perhaps it was the six pints in her, but again, her body acted without her telling it to, and she took a few steps towards the muggers.
"Leave him alone!"
The two tracksuits looked up at her and froze.
"Oh fuck." One said. "What do we do?"
"I've called the police!" Grace said, pulling her iPhone out of her pocket and marching onwards.
"Fuck! Run!"
They both broke into a sprint, rushing off into the cover of darkness. As Grace reached the Story Teller's side, she picked up a stone and hurled it after them.
"Dickheads!" She roared.
After a beat of silence, she looked down and saw the pummelled crumple of the street performer at her feet.
"You alright, mate?" She asked, bending to pick him up.
The man answered with a low groan and Grace checked herself.
"Of course you aren't." She mumbled. "I…hadn't really called the police, sorry… but do you need me to ring for an ambulance?"
She helped him sit up slowly and he took a moment to find his voice.
"It is… times like this that I am reminded of my Walter D Wintle." The Story Teller grumbled.
"Huh?"
"If you think you are beaten, you are." He said, flashing her a strange and bloody grin.
Grace frowned at him as those odd, black eyes sparkled back at her with something unknowable.
"They… they didn't knife you, or anything like that, did they?" She asked, ignoring his strange comment and checking his tattered clothes.
"No." He answered. "I am intact, good lady, thanks to you."
He tried to stand on his shaky, skinny legs, and Grace helped him to get upright, scared that he might fall over. The man straightened his shirt and re-adjusted the strap of a bulging corduroy bag that lay on top of his hip.
"You should really go to A and E, mate." Grace said gently. "That looked like one hell of a kicking."
"The passions grafted on wounded pride are the most inveterate." He recited.
The Story Teller stumbled off back towards the Bodlean and Grace suddenly felt a strong compulsion to follow him.
"Wait a minute! Hang on, buddy." She said, running after him. "You might have a concussion. You might be internally bleeding."
"A bruise is tender, but does not last, It leaves me as I always was."
"You…think you're just bruised?" Grace asked, hazarding a guess at interpreting his words. "Well, that's okay. I suppose. Did you know those men?"
"I had not had their pleasure before this evening."
"Well, you should really report it to the police. It sounded like they watch…people like you so they can jump them for their money afterwards."
The Story Teller stopped abruptly, fixing Grace in his mercurial stare. He smiled at her once more, his grey and tangled hair fanning out around his head like a dirty halo.
"People like me…?" he asked curiously.
"You know…Street performers…" Grace added quickly.
"I am not just a 'street performer', Mademoiselle. I am a guardian of the written word! A sentinel of scripture!"
"Right…"
The Story Teller staggered off again.
A gust of wind pressed against them both and Grace saw the thinness of his body outlined underneath his rags. Something profound pulled at her guts.
The man was obviously homeless, vulnerable, a little deluded… It was irresponsible of her to simply let him waltz off into the night.
"Are…are you hungry?" she asked suddenly.
The Story Teller froze. He turned on his heels and swallowed hard at Grace.
"As if there is a wriggling, gnawing beast in my stomach." he answered in a low voice.
"I'll buy you a kebab."
The fire that lit his eyes almost made Grace gasp.
"Lead the way, dear Mademoiselle."
Grace and the Story Teller walked together, back towards the Bodlean. Grace freed her chained-up bike and began pushing it over the cobblestones with her new friend in tow. Grace asked and asked him again if he was sure that he didn't need an ambulance or a police visit, and he assured her that he didn't. The weight of the bag at the Story Teller's side almost made him topple over once or twice, and Grace wondered what was in it.
Drugs, probably. She thought cynically.
Whatever was in there, it was filled to the brim. Sharp corners and edges sticking out everywhere. But he held on tight to the strap over his shoulder, twisting it in his gnarled, grubby hands.
Grace only knew of one kebab in Oxford worth having: Ahmed's BBQ. Truth be told, her bowl of nachos earlier was doing little to quell the post-drink munchies she had. Ahmed's was a staple for Oxford locals at the tail end of a night out. Even people who baulked at the idea of a sweaty kebab loved Ahmed's, and as they approached the truck, her mouth filled with saliva as the delicious smell of roasting meat filled her nostrils.
"Mixed, lamb, or chicken?" she asked the Story Teller as they approached the truck.
"Whatever you are having, dear lady." he replied, bowing slightly to her.
Grace approached the van and ordered. Meanwhile, the Story Teller took a seat on a nearby wall, dropping his filled bag onto the floor and dabbing at the nasty welt that had appeared on his cheek with his sleeve. He hissed out in pain as he prodded at his skin and as Grace began walking towards him, bearing two kebabs in her hands, she was suddenly taken aback by his strange appearance. The yellow light from the nearby streetlamp bathed his whole body in a sickly tinge, making him look almost jaundiced. His shadows seemed deeper too: hollowing his cheeks, sinking his eyes, deepening his wrinkles. And as she drew closer, she noticed a distinct swelling starting around his right eye.
The Story Teller noticed her staring at his injuries and he grinned widely.
"Odin lost an eye in the pursuit of knowledge, my dear." he said with a lilting sigh. "I can endure the same wound to the body."
"Well, does 'Odin' want garlic mayo or sweet chilli sauce?" She asked sarcastically, holding out the food to him.
The Story Teller gave her a wry smile and took a box from out of her hands.
Grace sat beside him on the stone wall, tucking in to her food with vigour. Those six pints inside her were still making her head feel a bit fuzzy and she relished the thought of getting some food in her stomach to eke it out a bit. After a few mouthfuls of delicious meat, she turned towards her companion for the evening.
"So, how much did they take from you?"
"A fair sum." The strange man admitted.
"Have you got any cash left?"
He shook his head.
The Story Teller took a pensive bite of his food and Grace watched his lined face carefully. Her eyes flicked to his bag on the floor, and she wondered again what he had in there.
"Do you… have somewhere to go tonight?" She asked. "I know a hostel not far from here. I could-"
"You have done plenty for me tonight." He said swiftly. "I am truly indebted to you."
He paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing. Grace suddenly felt like she was being scrutinised. Like how a cat scrutinises a mouse before the pounce.
"What is your name, dear lady?"
She thought about not answering for a moment, as she wasn't normally in the habit of giving her name out to weird tramps. But that same strange feeling that had compelled her to run at those muggers compelled her to speak then.
"Grace. Grace Beaumont."
"What an… elegant name." He replied sagely. "So full of urbanity and beauty."
"Uhh, thanks. I think it's French."
"How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, indeed."
"Oh, I know that one!" Grace exclaimed, excited that she'd recognised at least one of his odd recitations. "That's 'Amazing Grace'!"
The strange man chuckled and nodded his head.
"And what's yours? Or do you officially go by 'The Story Teller'? I bet you've got the Twitter handle for that and everything…"
"Is that what they're calling me nowadays?" He laughed, skewering another hearty mouthful of meat onto his fork. "I must say it's a little more profane than some of the other names I've been given before. Cadmus, Djhuty, Filid…"
"Although, I must admit, I've only really seen you in passing." Grace said, talking through a mouthful of meat and pitta. "I haven't actually heard you do your thing."
"Do my thing?" He asked with a curious raise of his wiry eyebrow.
"You know… tell a story. Recite a poem. Read the entire yellow pages. Whatever it is you do."
"What would you wish to hear from me, dear Grace?"
It was the first time he had used her name. The sound of flicking off his tongue sent a small bolt of electricity through Grace's ears. Like he was spitting mini-lightning. Beautiful but deadly.
"I…Uhh…I don't know. Gosh, I've never been asked for Literature requests before. I suppose I quite liked the Lemony Snicket books when I was younger…"
"You mean to tell me that there is nothing in the written word that stirs your soul? No story that speaks to your heart?"
"Lyrics, yes. The stories in songs, sure. But I guess I've always been more Music than English Literature."
"Oh, no no no no…! This simply won't do at all!"
The Story Teller leapt off the wall, spraying shredded lettuce and onion and tomato all over the floor. He flexed his fingers and turned towards Grace, clearing his throat.
"I could give you a bit of Shakespeare? Or perhaps a little Hemingway is more suited to you."
"Oh go on then." Grace said, framing her face with her hands. "Tell me, what does it look like I'd enjoy?"
"Well, in my brief stint as a lover, I have found that few things please a lady more than a literary appraisal." He said warmly.
"A what?"
The Story Teller stood with his hands cupped in front of him, eyes narrowing as the cogs turned in his mind.
"My dear, sweet Grace, with the light brown hair. Borne, like vapor, on the summer air."
Grace touched a hand to her hair with a laugh. She was rather enjoying this 'literary appraisal'.
"O brown eyes, how warm you are, With look I may not meet, Lest there I read too deep and far. A meaning wild and sweet."
"You make brown hair and brown eyes sound so special."
"You are special."
Grace scoffed and looked at the floor, but when she met the strange man's gaze again, his eyes were unwavering. She cleared her throat awkwardly and shuffled around a little.
"Carry on, then."
"I also see… that you are something of a Nymph of the downward smile and sidelong glance."
Grace almost choked on her food.
"Yet what you are none cares or knows; Your friends forsake you like a memory lost: You are the self-consumer of your woes – They rise and vanish in oblivious host."
Grace felt like a fist had been slammed into her gut.
"How… how can you see all that?" she asked, voice thick with emotion.
"Where there is neither sense of life or joys, But the vast shipwreck of your life's esteems; Even the dearest that you loved the best, Are strange – nay, rather, stranger than the rest."
"Stop it." she said sharply, her eyes filling with tears. "I've had enough now."
She rose from off the wall with a sudden outburst of movement, slamming the remains of her kebab in the bin. Her hands enclosed around the handlebars of her bike with white-knuckled force and she began marching away down the road.
"I am sorry!" The Story Teller called after her. He grabbed his bag from off the floor and ran to her side. "Dear Grace, I beg your forgiveness."
She stopped in her tracks, trying desperately to blink away the water misting her vision.
"It can be hard to see a mirror held up to ourselves. Especially when we are still too bruised and battered to face our reflection." he continued, stepping closer to her.
She said nothing. She was losing the battle against the tears in her eyes, despite her best efforts, and they slid down her cheeks silently. Grace wondered how he seemed to know so much and see so deeply past her walls of cold protection.
Perhaps he's an expert in all that 'Derren Brown' shit… she thought to herself.
"I have been an ungrateful wretch to you. You, who saved me from those thugs. You who fed me and indulged me in my recitals."
She was at a loss for what to say then. But something hard and cold pulled at her insides. That same sinking feeling of despair that had almost got the best of her earlier in The White Horse. It was like a spectre over her shoulder, waiting to strike whenever she was weakest, whenever she was low. That spectre had chased her for six months. Clinging to her back like a ghoulish creature of horror.
"I…I don't want to go home." She said suddenly, tears springing from her eyes.
Why had she told the Story Teller that? He didn't know her. But maybe it was exactly because he didn't know her. There was nothing to maintain, no relationship to keep intact. It actually felt quite liberating to admit that to someone.
"What do you want, Grace?" He asked her gently.
"I want… I want to go somewhere where I can make my own story. Not be stuck in the past of someone else's."
"You want a story? I have them!"
He lurched for the bag at his side and Grace's sadness soon turned into piqued curiosity. Throwing it open, she was slightly disappointed to find out the corners and edges she'd seen had been books.
It was a bag chock-filled with books.
"Which story would you like to be yours?" He asked, his eyes turning manic again. "I have so many for you to choose from!"
The Story Teller thrust a couple towards her and suddenly Grace had her arms full. 'Pride and Prejudice', 'Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea', 'Great Expectations'…
"Or perhaps one of these, you might like."
'Dracula', 'The Iliad', 'The Count of Monte Cristo'…
"Or perhaps something better suited to our beautiful Oxford." He said with a strange smile, throwing even more books her way.
'The Lord of the Rings'…
'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'…
'The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe'…
Eventually, Grace had no choice but to drop them. Her arms gave way and the books tumbled to the ground in a flutter of print and paper.
"Oh, God…" she breathed, bending low to pick them up.
The Story Teller bent down too, his face now alarmingly close to hers.
"Choose, my dear Grace. Choose!"
"Christ sake, I don't know…!" She exclaimed in exasperation.
Grace rolled her eyes and looked fleetingly around at the pile of literature on the floor. The man was mad. Whatever he was raving on about, it was probably best that she just indulged him.
"That one! The biggest one." She said with a heavy sigh, finger outstretched towards a particularly meaty tome.
She picked it up, along with a few others, and thrust them back into the Story Teller's hands.
"And next time I see you on Magdalen Street, you can work your magic, yeah? Give me that story."
She turned from him then, determined to leave him to his own devices. She'd fed him and made sure he was okay after his battering. That was her obligation to him done.
"I'm going home. You should probably find that hostel I told you about."
And with that, she turned and left.
The Story Teller watched her go, his beady eyes fixed on her until the sound of her ticking bike-spokes had truly faded into the night. The book she had thrust into his arms was still pressed close to his heart and slowly, reverently, he held it up to his face and read.
The smile that he shared with the book alone was archaic and preeminent.
"An interesting choice, my dear Grace." He whispered. "A beautiful choice."
He cradled the book close to his chest as he wandered off into the darkness, in the throws of divine happiness. Thumbing through the pages, he appeared to be looking for a particular line and he exclaimed with delight when he found it.
"A beautiful choice." He repeated again.
The Story Teller cast one last look back in the direction Grace had just left, and spoke his bookish wisdom aloud to the empty air, as if it would chase after her. As if it was a spell he was casting upon her.
"To love another person is to see the face of God."