How To Make Friends With Demons Part 31

"I can have a lemonade with you," Stinx said.

"Coming right up. Let's join the others."

No one seemed to want to go anywhere and by eleven o'clock everyone except Stinx but including Lucy was pretty sloshed. But high on the early onset of temperance he was in great humour. He tried to talk me into joining him; then he gave up and instead he outlined his ideas.

"Installation art," he p.r.o.nounced. "That's our next racket. I'll churn it out. Jaz will proclaim in the papers that he's turned his back on poetry and is going into Art."

"Or," I said, warming to our enterprise, "we can do collectible wines. All you'll have to do is forge the labels."

"Or," said Jaz . . .

I was happy with these ridiculous plans. Everyone was animated, talking, wine-glow and candle-light shimmering in their eyes. Even Robbie was laughing and joking with Anna. I thought that on the morrow he might even come to GoPoint with Anna, Sarah, Mo and myself, to help the staff make a bit of a party for the inmates. Who knew whether he would or he wouldn't?

He might, and that was enough. And if he did it would probably be to follow Anna around like a puppy. My son is smitten with my girlfriend. I know a demon approaching the landing strip when I see one.

With everyone talking and rather too full of Christmas cheer I looked at Anna, and I thought: I can be allowed to love this woman, even if she won't take my key. I looked from her to the boisterous scene in my kitchen. Well, it wasn't a family exactly: but it contained enough trouble to be as good as one.

I managed to peel away from the group and stepped outside into the backyard behind my house. There is an event that takes place every Christmas Eve at midnight and I didn't want to miss it. I don't know why or how it happens, but it does and always on the stroke of midnight. I call it the Ascent of Demons.

I folded my arms, stepped back and craned my neck to get a good view of the skyline. They had already started, dozens of them, quickly turning into hundreds. Yes, hundreds of demons, slowly ascending into the night sky over London. Up they went, perfectly still, like floating statues, each with its own clear s.p.a.ce, rising like helium-filled balloons, but much more slowly.

The ascending demons had taken on a uniform hue of resplendent, golden-brown. Up they went, leaving the Earth. I have no idea why. I knew they would be back, but right now they were leaving.

Someone burst out of the back door, looking for me.

"Here," shouted Stinx, "what you looking at?"

"London,' I said. "What a place."

He was quickly joined by all the others. They were all craning their necks now, trying to see what had so commanded my attention. But it was pointless trying to tell them. Pointless. You might as well try explaining it to the police. You might as well try telling your mother, or your child. If they can't see it, they can't see it.

The sky was filled with ascending demons now, all rising softly and slowly, many of them become only pinp.r.i.c.ks of light, disappearing.

I looked from the sky to Anna, and from her to the rest of them. Unable to see anything in the sky, they had re-fixed their gazes upon me. Anna smiling, Stinx with one eyebrow raised, Sarah and Mo looking puzzled and indulgent, Robbie slightly disgusted, Jaz looking like he wanted to laugh. What an odd group. I loved them all. I fancied that I could see myself in the shining brilliance of their eyes. They reflected back at me, which was appropriate, because the biggest demon I faced was the one I saw in the mirror. Because he was the master of all the others. What should I say? I had lived in the shadow of a wrong I didn't commit and in doing so made a counterfeit of my own life. Faked my own death, in a way.

I knew it didn't matter what happened with Anna. Though I needed her more than ever to help me through, I was prepared for her to love me or leave me, to destroy me on the wheel of s.e.x, to crush my heart to dust: I no longer felt I could control it, or her, or even that I should. We can't live with our foot over the mine. We can't. For the first time since my youth I was unshackled. I had love, even though it scorched me.

You let go. It's as simple and as complicated as Antonia had told me. You cry. You come.

You sing. You laugh. You scream. You let go. No one needs to hang on to a first edition.

Whoever wrote it; even if it was Moses.

I looked back up at the sky, blinking at the l.u.s.trous beauty of the ascending and departing demons. They formed an alphabet I was beginning to learn to read. They were fire in the sky.

THE END.