Raising Aphrodite. A Requiem
New York 1983 & Wellington 2002.
It’s just gone 9 pm as I sidle down the three grimy steps from street level and into Tin Pan Alley, a famous name, faceless bar corner 49th and Broadway. On the previous Saturday having finished our late show three blocks down in Times Square we had closed up and come in to a packed Tin Pan, the Drongos, the only Kiwi RnR band in Manhattan makin em jump and jiggle, it felt like we owned the town on those nights, but tonight I am hungry, no cooked meal for three days, no pay until the weekend, I’m grimy, and looking for my own touch of home. Sally and Alice are behind the bar, Alice serves the street end and Sally the deep end, doubling as short-order cook. I lean on the bar and peel the label from my King of Beers, nursing it, my last two bucks. Sally is bright, cheerful, “You look a bit thin”, she says, “wanna burger?” We slip into the kitchen, an airless alcove behind the bar. I perch on a broken barstool, and Sally ignites the gas grill. I’m grateful for the meal. I don’t often scrounge, but Maggie, the boss, is never in the bar on these quiet nights, so Sally can cook a freebie, at least it was for me. Her brown eyes owlish behind the round rims, her always-messy hair and her skirt bouncing on the back of her knees, her quick questions and familiar laughter ease my loneliness.
“Can you come down to the loft on Wednesday and give Alan a hand to shift the costumes out of Charteris?”
“Yes, Wednesday is cool, I’ll come after work ‘bout 5:30”.
“We need to rehearse for this show Nance has booked at a school near Croton. We’ll do The Wreck of the Moana Marie, Deb has just made some gorgeous bird puppets for an opening dance, and we need a song.”
“I’ve got a little tune actually, made it up last night, guitar and harmonica, just needs some…you know words”
“Sounds very Mr Music, what’s the tune like?”
“Kind of merry and tuneful, like a country jig.”
“Sounds perfect. Oh, and we thought we could do a parade before the show, cos it’s at a village fair, so what happened to your stilts?”
“One is broken, but the building where I am working on West 84th has a skip out the back with some nice bits of 3x2.”
“Poosle some and bring them down on Friday. Alan is gonna borrow some tools from Austin. What do you need?”
“Just a saw”.
“Sounds fine”.
Just the usual sort of organising to keep a theatre group going, and Sally, as always, funny, busy, planning, drawing me in, opening me up.
“Heard from home”?
“Not really, mum and dad have sold the farm to my brother, that’s good I suppose, stays in the family”.
She flips the burger onto toasted buns and drains the fries, no salad, she apologises, That’s ok is my reply, Meat and fries are fine. There is a short silence, Sally goes out of the kitchen and upon returning says
“Just need to check Maggie’s not on the prowl, she sometimes pops in unexpectedly and doesn’t like people in the kitchen, but no sign. You should seduce her.”
“Me? Maggie?”
“Yeah, Maggie, she’s rich and she fancies you.”
“She would eat me for breakfast. Isn’t her boyfriend in the mafia?”
“Probably, but he’s outa of town mostly.”
“Well, I’m saving myself for the girl next door.”
“Next door to who?”
I have no ready wit, and she suspects this might be a tender spot. I stand and murmur my thanks, not able to say what is in my mouth and make my way out onto the humid street and my railway apartment on West 48th.
20 years later, I travelled to Wellington for Alan’s Memorial Concert and alighting from the taxi walk around the corner of the Greek Community Centre heading for the stage door. Sally is sitting on an upturned box talking with a woman I don’t recognise. On seeing me, she throws down her cigarette and walks with pained urgency toward me, like a body full of broken glass, and I glimpse how deeply shattered she is by his death. For an instant, I see myself as I hope she sees me, dependable John, travel bag and guitar in hand, summoned and arrived, ready. We stand together, and I can do what I have never before been allowed to do. I hold her tightly, gently. Before I can stop myself, I say, “I love you, Sally” There is a pause in her sobbing, and she shifts her head, pressing her forehead into my chest, hard. I stroke her hair and touch the nape of her neck, and we stand crying. My love, along with all the love of others, was, to our eternal sadness, not enough.