Burlesque - 5 (edited)

And the hand?

Back in the bar, Babe is flapping.

Val ruffles her brow in concern (is she squeezing too tightly?). The young man - an apnéist surfacing - bursts, gasping, from her heaving bosom. Sequins claw fat tracks through greasepaint. (Perhaps a little?) She loosens her hold, a little.

‘What?’ The boy looks up, veil fluttering as understanding distils; drip, drip. Their eyes are locked; for a breath, ‘Valerie…’ A whisper - so low; a breath.

‘He’s alive!’ Babe bunny bounces - forward, hop; and back, hop, hop. ‘We need an ambulance!’ Ah, reason - salve to a skittering countenance, weaves its mysterious magic, and emotions tightly in hand Babe scuttles to the telephone.

‘No!’ (So firm from so frail.)

She turns on heel eyeing the supine clown. Questions, questions, hum, buzz, fog her oh so worn esprit. As Babe’s brain turns, so does he, levering himself from Val’s concern to sitting.

‘I am okay.’ The girl vibrates on the edge of activity. He lowers flattened hand, ‘Really.’

She slides, relinquishing all rights to majority, down the flaking lobby wall. His voice, there can be no doubt, has Authority.

‘What the fuck..?’ Lo! Cometh the hero!

Babe’s eyelids beat a flustered tattoo, (oh! What buttocks!) But how he quakes; shivers on the rim of eruption,

‘What - The - Fuck?’

‘Oh Phil, the door and the busker and…’ No need a PHD in psycho-physiognomy to read the beaming ray of relief that stretches Babe’s (ever so slightly) asymmetric pout - Oh Daddy! - ‘Help!’

(What a mess.) A frisson of distaste and Phil turns to Val for elucidation.

Val looks like she’s been spilling cherry syrup, too. The boy’s black hair, greased with his own stiffening blood and squeezed into a spiking curlicue, has left it’s mark; a heart that pulses with each heavy breath she pulls. (Keep it together girl.) ‘All in hand Boss, all in hand. Better check the door though.’

‘What?’

‘I’m afraid I was molested.’ Pushing against the not insubstantial weight of clinging woman, the clown staggers to a stand. ‘ I came back for my box.’ A slick drip of red cleaves through face - a movement caught as shutter snaps - jet smeared to slate through chalked cheek, he wavers, catching at a chair back for support. ‘I finished at the foot of your stairs, I…’ Phil is already feeling through the curtains and doubling the steps - a Grecian jock; rippling. Action man.

‘Babe!’ Val’s voice, so smoky low, twists harshly. ‘Get the boy a blanket.’

Dither, dither,

‘Go!’

A last doleful survey of scene and the girl turns to slip through the door marked private

The clown collapses back into cushion.

‘Gabriel,’ Val slides beside - hungry, urgent, ‘Gabriel, why did you come?’ She has his face between her hands, ‘You cannot turn away.’

His eyes close. ‘Valerie.’ And open; spilling sea. ‘It was not my choice to make.’ The blood congealing at his temple glistens.

She pulls him toward her and puckers lip over hurt; spilling in turn, an ocean of her very own.

‘The door! It’s split from top to bottom. (bloody good lock though.) Val!’

‘Sorry?’

Phil strides toward the lad. ‘What did you do to my fucking door?’ But the evidence is stacked, he shakes his head; revulsion and pity clamouring for placement as he turns - robbed - from the angular weeping figure on his sofa. He runs a hand through faintly greased hair, sighing, ‘I’ll have to phone the old bill for the insurance.’

‘No!’ (ooh!) ‘That will not be necessary. Tomorrow, I will repair all damage.’

‘What?’ Spinning round (oh, this is great.) He turns from boy to Val.

‘He’ll do it.’ She blinks slowly, steady conviction setting.

(I want to believe you Val.) There’s something lodged between shrunken gum and golden crown that’s digging in. His eyeballs are prickling with fatigue. He has a bleeding (bloody) clown on his sofa and his front door lays, calmly awaiting it's pulpy destiny.

‘All in hand Boss, all in hand.’

‘I so want to believe you Val.’

‘Go to bed.’

A flutter of movement and Babe emerges, elbowing through the door, care laden. Blankets and towels tumble, a first aid kit smashes to the ground - emergency, emergency!

Val exhales, ‘And take Babe,' (slowly, slowly,) ‘she can’t go home in that state.’

‘I…’ Give it up boy, just give it up.

‘Go to bed Phil.’