Greensleeves

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

-- Fire and Ice by: Robert Frost


***
Alas my love you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously;

Andy Rayner swilled the ice cubes in her drink and took another sip of whiskey before placing the near empty glass back on the piano. Stubbing out a cigarette butt, she reached for another and lit it with her left hand, her right already dancing along the ivory keys and playing the beginning strains to Greensleeves.


And I have loved you oh so long
Delighting in your company.

A man walked alone in the London streets, head down and shoulders hunched to ward off the bitter cold. The wind whistled and howled, but he lifted his head when he heard a haunting strain of music, so soft as to be half imaginary, carried by the wind. The harsh wind stung his eyes, but he forced them to stay open as he searched for the source of the music. Through his watering eyes, he saw a blur of light, a lit window in a dark part of town. London was asleep at 3am, but this one small window with its music was awake. Greg Hughes turned and headed toward the light.


Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.

***

A knock was heard at apartment 3B, and in response a piano stopped playing abruptly. There was a loud thump followed by a muffled curse as Andy Rayner picked her way carefully through the piles of books, newspapers, and records strewn about the apartment. The loud thump had previously been a tall stack of books balanced precariously on the beat up old radiator. She reached the door and pulled it open; casually, she flicked ash from the end of her cigarette and let it sift slowly to the floor.

A stranger stood outside her door, an unshaven man in a long overcoat and a newsboy cap. When he lowered his hand from knocking, she glimpsed a black Rolling Stone t-shirt under a tan blazer, coupled with jeans and trainers. He raised his eyebrows and looked at her with electric blue eyes, and she realized she had been staring. She narrowed her eyes, annoyed.

“Who the hell are you?”

***

When Greg entered the apartment building that housed the mysterious light, the only thought that was lodged in his numb brain was to find the music he had heard, followed closely by immense relief he felt to be out of the cold. However now, standing in the doorway of a scowling American twenty-something girl, he felt at loss and not a little foolish. And although he was loath to admit it, she intimidated him. A little. Her grey green eyes were challenging, albeit a tad bleary.

Greg stammered for a response, taken off guard. The girl ran her fingers through her short, cropped, untidy black hair, clearly frustrated with his bumbling and short of temper.

“Fine,” she snapped, “Stay out here. If you need me, well, you can piss right off.”

With that, she shut the door in his face.

***

Andy leaned against the back of the door after she shut it, partly because she was expecting some response, and partly due to her slight inability to stand without support. She had drunk an awful lot of whiskey tonight. More than usual. Then again, tonight was special. Vibrations shuddered through her body for a few moments before she realized that the man was knocking on the door again. She rolled her eyes and pulled open the door marginally, sticking her head out and glaring.

“What.”

Greg cleared his throat and blurted out, “I heard your music,” before she could shut the door on him again. “From the street,” he finished lamely.

Andy paused.

“Yeah?” she asked, opening the door a little wider. “What were you doing wandering the streets at 3am?”

He shrugged. “The pubs close at eleven. Wandering the streets sounded like a better option that going home to an empty house.”

Andy eyed him critically. Greg eyed her critically back. She nodded, apparently coming to some sort of decision. Taking a long drag from her cigarette, she swung the door open and beckoned him in.

“Come on in,” she said, “have a drink.” Closing the door behind them, she muttered, “No one should be alone on Christmas.”

***

“So what’s your story.”

Andy had led Greg through the ridiculously cluttered living area and into the slightly less cluttered bedroom/study area. A pile of sheet music had been unceremoniously dumped off of a chair for Andy’s curious guest. Andy busied herself with pouring drinks for herself and her visitor. Greg took the time to look around. A bed was shoved up into a corner, obviously meant to take up as little space as possible. Numerous bookshelves in various states of disarray were crammed to capacity with novels and records. The piano was the only uncluttered place in the room, and obviously the focal point. Greg stood and rifled through the sheet music, discovering scores and scores of complicated-looking pieces; grace notes chased sixteenth notes down the staff, and crescendos danced after pianissimos.

Greg heard Andy clear her throat behind him and he started guiltily, feeling inexplicably as if he had infringed on her privacy somehow. He sat back down in the worn armchair and accepted the scotch that was handed to him. Andy took a seat on the piano bench, twirled an ink pen absentmindedly between her long, artistic fingers, and posed the question:

“So what’s your story?”

Once again, Greg found himself at a loss for words. How did he explain to this girl fifteen years his junior about a soulless marriage, about coming home every day from a job he hated to a wife that despised him and children who thought he was a failure. How did he explain the emptiness that he knew hid even still behind his eyes? How could this girl of so few years understand that?

Greg fiddled with his drink and dodged the question. “What do you mean?”

“Most people would desperately cling to people they don’t even like just so they wouldn’t be alone on Christmas. What makes you so special?”

“Why do you care?”

“I don’t,” Andy snapped, then caught herself. “But you’re an anomaly. I like anomalies. They interest me.”

“Is that all people are good for? Observing, studying, searching for discrepancies in their general behavior?”

“Well,” Andy offered Greg a cigarette. “That’s not all they’re good for.”

Greg looked at her, wondering what exactly she meant by that. Andy just gave him an inscrutable expression and lit the unaccepted cigarette off of the dying one that hung between her lips. She handed the lit cigarette to Greg, who shook his head, claiming, “I’ve quit.” She shrugged and took a drag off of it herself, her pale cheeks hollowing as she inhaled, acrid smoke filling her lungs. Greg watched her as she exhaled, her eyelids fluttered closed and her head tilted back. He was oddly touched by the way her thin striped shirt hung off of her spare frame, and the way the neck of it gaped to show a slender collarbone. He shook his head when he caught his mind wandering, as if to shake his errant thoughts from his head. He looked at her again, objectively. Here was a young girl, living by herself in the city, and apparently either brave enough or apathetic enough to let a complete stranger into her apartment in the middle of the night. Suddenly, Greg wanted to know her; how she got where she was, and why she felt the need to compulsively chain smoke and drink whiskey far into the night.

“What about you, then?” he asked curiously, “What’s an American doing living in the heart of London?”

Andy snorted. “You mean what’s a girl doing living alone in the city? God, decades have passed since women’s rights, and still men think women can’t take care of themselves. I suppose you think I’m a fool for letting you up here. Well, maybe I am. Maybe you’re a rapist, a murderer, maybe you do this every night; find your way into unsuspecting girls’ apartments and carry out your darkest fantasies. Maybe I don’t care.”

Greg felt his face heat up at the vitriolic words that spilled out of this girl's mouth.

“I’m not any of those,” he said defensively, “And I’m not a chauvinist. And if you did think I was any of those…” here he paused, apparently at a loss for words, “…things, why would you let me in? How can you be so apathetic about life? How can you live like that?”

Andy looked up at him disdainfully, and Greg realized he had stood up. She recognized that this was probably the most he has said with this much emotion in years. A slow smile curved her lips as she looked him up and down. “My, my,” she intoned, “How worked up you get. Full of fire, you are.”

Greg looked away. What was he thinking, coming up to a stranger’s apartment, looking for — well, he didn’t know what he had been looking for, exactly. Companionship? Understanding? Distraction? Obviously, whatever it was, he was mistaken. He turned to leave, when a quiet voice came from behind him.

“You’re damaged, aren’t you? That’s why you’re here?”

Greg paused. “Yes,” he said, without turning around. “I am.” He looked over his shoulder to see Andy looking at him and an unnamable emotion flicked across her face, quick enough so he may have imagined it.

“Well I can’t fix you, if that’s what you’re looking for. I’m not in the business of mending people.”

It seemed like an eternity they studied each other, sharp gray green eyes locked with vivid blue. Finally, Greg spoke.

“I’m not here to be fixed.”

Andy nodded, satisfied. “Very well. Have a seat, and quit being so thin-skinned. It makes you much less interesting.”

Greg looked around and, attempting to salvage at least a shred of dignity, walked over to his drink and sipped it before sinking back into his chair.

***

Much later on, Greg would wonder silently to himself, so as not to wake Andy sleeping beside him, what exactly it was that made him stay that Christmas night nearly a year ago. He would think back to his life before he met Andy; his cold, suffocating, dreary life. It wasn’t meant to be like that, not really. He was supposed to be like his father, to see respectable English girls, pick the one he liked best and marry her, have kids and be content. Instead, he was separated from the wife that was supposed to make him so happy and living in a tiny apartment with an American girl half his age. And while his life now with Andy wasn’t perfect, he didn’t feel suffocated anymore. He felt oddly at peace, with this unconventional girl and her unconventional life. For the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why she was with him. When one day, he asked her, he was both surprised and gratified when, instead of looking at him as if he were an insecure two year old, as his wife would have, she simply studied him with her grey green eyes and said, “You heard my music. Don’t concern yourself with why.”

And he didn’t.

Greensleeves was my delight,
Greensleeves my heart of gold
Greensleeves was my heart of joy
And who but my Lady Greensleeves.