Communion Town by Sam Thompson Page A

was just throwing together fragments of a conversation; but the words fell into patterns. Her playing riffled through me.
    That was what I wanted, I knew, without articulating it to myself or really understanding why. I’d practised all I could. I’d borrowed her laptop to make demos, layering strumming underneath fingerpicking and working out harmonies to sing with myself. I had listened endlessly to these recordings, alert to their flaws and frailties, correcting and polishing. What did I want with the offhand approval of strangers? I didn’t know, but communing in secret with a laptop wasn’t enough. Two songs were ready to perform but I was hesitating over a third. Was it tender and truthful, or would it make that upstairs room fall uncomfortably silent? I uncrossed my legs, stretched my socked feet across the carpet, and began to play through the intro again.
    She laid her book down. I looked around to find her glaring at me, and the words of the first verse faltered on my tongue. She let her breath out in a disbelieving snort.
    ‘You keep on playing that,’ she said. ‘I’m right here! What are you trying to tell me?’
    I opened my mouth to explain that I had to practise for tonight, that I needed to work out whether it was ready to perform –
    ‘Yes, the damn open mic night, I know all about it,’ she said. ‘So what? You think you can keep on playing that song, over and over, and I’ll just sit here and listen?’
    She had raised herself up against the arm of the sofa. I twisted around to face her, the guitar slipping from my lap with a soft discord.
    ‘Don’t interrupt me,’ she said, ‘I’m getting going now. Are you actually trying to torment me, is that it? Have I done something to deserve this?’ Her eyes were bright with frustration and, I noticed with a shock, also with tears. One brimmed over, then the other, brushing trails down her cheeks.
    ‘You just keep on playing those damn songs – and yes, they’re fine, they’re beautiful – you keep on playing until I start to think they’re all just words and they don’t mean anything. Or maybe you’re doing it on purpose, seeing how long I’ll smile nicely and keep waiting. Were you ever actually going to say it? It’s nothing strange, you know! It’s not difficult!’
    She rose and crossed the room to steady herself against the mantelpiece, sniffed loudly and rubbed her face with the heels of her hands. She let out a big sigh. ‘Sooz and Ceelie are leaving at the end of the month,’ she said. ‘I wanted you to move in, can you believe that? I thought you could move in here and it’d be just us. How stupid am I? I mean, how was I supposed to ask, when you couldn’t – when you wouldn’t even say? Never mind. Forget it.’
    I was on my feet, the guitar still in my hand. I took a hesitant step towards her, but she turned away. My skin stung, my head pulsed with pressure, my vision darkened. Sunlight fell through the window and her novel still lay open on the sofa, but the room had been pumped full of cold water. I couldn’t speak. Her eyes were hidden behind her forelock. My guitar, brushing against my leg, gave another gentle, tuneless twang, an isolated syllable of sound.
    ‘You’d better go,’ she said.
     
    I didn’t play at the open mic that night. After leaving her flat, I crossed the street and hailed a tram, but when I felt in my pockets I found I’d brought no money with me. I had to apologise and climb back down to the street. The driver swore as the doors slapped shut and the rubber wheels sneered away.
    I set off on foot instead, and walked a long way, not noticing where I was heading but not wanting to stop moving. Eventually the daylight failed and drizzle began to mist down. No more trams went past.
    I passed through negative spaces, beside railway sidings, under archways clogged with litter and past industrial lots where the floodlights blinded me with after-images of concrete and wire. All was darkness and