Free Storm Glass by Jane Urquhart Page B

preparing to photograph the shadows of lichen.
    What kind of light do they have in hotel restaurants, I wondered. I couldn’t remember ever seeing a shadow there. And yet they were filled with waiters, tables, chairs, clients; perpendicular forms quite capable of making shadows. Still, I’d never noticed any. And the food, as far as I could remember, never cast a shadow on the china. I turned so that mine was in front of me, so that it bent when it reached the wall. Then I turned again so that I could see the very end of town and my shadow was behind me once again.
    At the end of the town something was blinking and flashing. At first, because I thought it was an accident, I began to anticipate sirens. But then, as I looked harder, shading the sun from my eyes, I discovered that it was simply a merry-go-round. Part of neither a carnival nor a fair; it was all by itself, occupying a vacant lot, just after the architecture stopped and just before the flat expanse of fields began. The lights were to attract attention, to make it seem more important than it was, and to cause people as far away as myself to notice it.
    “When you’re finished,” I said, “let’s go down there, down to the merry-go-round.”
    “Is there one?” he asked, changing lenses again. “Why don’t
you
go down there? And then, by the time you come back up here I’ll be finished.” He focused on the moss. “This light, you see, is absolutely perfect here right now.”
    I walked right across the area that the blue workman had been raking, leaving my footprints there. Soon I could distinguish the music that was being played while the merry-go-round went round and round. It was American rock and roll recorded by a French group who obviously didn’t understand the lyrics but who liked the melody anyway.
Won’t you come out, won’t you come out tonight
, they sang. As I got closer I could see that several of the horses were unoccupied, as were two miniature chariots. A group of three or four children stood off to one side eating pink candy floss and waiting for the next ride so that they could climb on board. Their mothers gossiped in another group a few feet away. Directly behind them a brightly painted truck was parked, evidence that this was not a permanent merry-go-round, but one that would, more than likely, move on to another town the following morning.
    The day the merry-go-round came to town
, I said aloud to myself as I watched the magenta, fuchsia and lime-green lights flash on and off under a bright blue sky. The phrase, I decided, sounded like the beginning of a children’s story about skipping school or running away from home. One with gypsies and caravans and babies being born in trunks, where one day you’re at a plain brown desk and the next you’re walking a tightrope. I would have told him all this if he had been there with me. But he might have stopped me. It might have been the beginning of another accusing monologue.
    There I was, right at the end of town, standing in front of a tacky little merry-go-round that was singing
it will be all right if you just come out tonight
in a thick French accent, Dayglo horses going up and down, round and round. I watched and listened until the perfect light abruptly disappeared behind a totally unexpected bank of black, black clouds which had moved, like a dangerous monologue, over the rim of the horizon.
    When I turned to walk back up the boulevard I had something else to say out loud to myself.
Merry-go-round
, I whispered,
with approaching storm
.
    I was beginning to feel faint with hunger.
    Surprisingly, the plates in the restaurant had nothing on them at all except food. Still, as you finished each course you could see the tiny etched lines that had been made, over the years, by people moving knives and forks. We had leek soup, followed by
escargots
and were now working our way through
veau à la crème
. The pangs in my stomach had subsided and the wine was making me want to