Body Language Busker By Helen Parker
Hi there, nice to meet you. Yeah, that’s right, I’m Simon Smith. No, I didn’t book the session, it was Marcie.
Is she my what? Yeah, she is, six months.
Well, she said I needed to address a few issues, so here I am.
You want to know how we met?
Marcie was a regular commuter on my patch. I’d watch her dashing by most days in her Veja trainers across that acoustic sweet spot on the Northern and Piccadilly lines and I’d ramp up the sound like I was playing Wembley Stadium or something. Nobody knows why the sound’s so great here, but hey, some things you just got to accept, right?
Eventually, she noticed me and from time to time she’d stop and hum a few tunes while she was waiting for The Fiancé to arrive. She’d chat too, which I realise is unusual but hey, that’s Marcie all over – a real communicator. In the two years I’ve spent singing about love, loss and the state of the nation, I’ve realised most punters would rather die than speak to a busker but who needs words when you’ve got body language, right? I mean, buskers are really good at it - but Marcie’s even better, I mean, she’s The Best.
You want me to talk about Ben Wiseman, fiancé of the lovely Marcie?
Well, Wiseman wasn’t what you’d call a ‘giver’, no, Wiseman was a taker, with all the accompanying body language that went with it: angular, leant forward a lot, always moving, that sort of thing. Not the type of guy to chuck me a few quid, if you see what I’m saying.
I can see him now: free hand curled up in a ball, muscles in his back as taut as an over-tuned guitar. But that’s what anyone would see if they cared to look, which is why I’m surprised Marcie didn’t. Maybe she just didn’t look close enough. I mean he wasn’t a poor-quality guy, more a spectacularly tense one. Contrary to popular belief, brokers aren’t morons, they’re just stressed: all that money, slipping through their fingers; it’s enough to send anyone off the rails. Or on to them.
I understood because I used to be one. For six years, I was a broker and I’m telling you, it nearly killed me.
But then I took up busking and it went away. For a while. Marcie was a great help, even though she didn’t realise it at the time. As the weeks went by, she’d saunter over, and we’d belt out a few tunes together. Then when Wiseman stepped off the tube, she’d move away, which is why I knew Ben Wiseman and why he didn’t know me.
By the way, I’d like to make one thing clear. I didn’t care if it was Ben the Broker or Bob the Builder getting off that tube, but I did care that Marcie changed from funny and confident to up-tight and cautious by the time he got there. As I say, Wiseman wasn’t a giver.
A month later, Marcie announced it was time we all ‘met up’ - and then things got a bit more complicated.
‘I’ve asked Ben to meet me next to ‘The Busker’ tonight - aka you,’ she said, giving me a wink.
‘I’m honoured,’ I said and gave her a wink back.
‘Did I mention that when we get married, I’d like you to play at our wedding?’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘But I hardly know you.’
‘Not OUR wedding, you idiot; mine and Ben’s wedding!’ She flicked her auburn hair off her face and laughed a full-throated ‘jazz’ laugh, but then, she followed it up with what you might call a distant, haughty glare. (Well, it kept me guessing, anyway.)
‘What time is he supposed to arrive?’
She shrugged, and I understood what that meant too. I knew how out of whack a broker’s timekeeping can be and I felt her pain. That doesn’t mean I’m sorry for what happened. I mean, on one level I’m sorry, obviously, but it’s - well, it’s complicated, isn’t it?
‘Everyone knows that brokers are useless at telling the time,’ I said. I wanted Marcie to know that I empathised with her, but I think she thought I was hiding something. And she was right, I was.
‘What do you know about brokers?’ she snapped.
I knew I had to cover my tracks – and quick. I’d been a broker and I’d failed at it. Spectacularly. It would be like telling her how crap I was before she found out for herself. So, I fudged it in a pathetic attempt to ingratiate myself.
‘I quite like them.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, they mean well, don’t they?’
‘They mean well?’
‘Brokers.’ I crossed my legs along with my arms, my body forming some sort of a twisted shield. It was obvious I’d lost control: my body language was turning into a stutter; a nervous, emotional fumble in the dark. And she was standing so close to me I had to narrow my eyes in order to see her properly. I’d spent the last two years invisible to thousands of commuters, and I wasn’t used to being observed this closely by one of them. I’m guessing Marcie’s told you, but my time as a broker is not something I’m keen to discuss – either then or now – but somehow, she understood that and so she switched tack.
‘You know, you’re really good at this,’ she said, nodding at my guitar.
‘I know.’
‘No, seriously.’
‘I am being serious.’
‘Oh.’ She looked at me with her head to one side as if trying to work something out. ‘I thought all buskers were artistic types who’d dropped out of the rat race for a more meaningful life.’
‘Not me. I’m aiming to be the next ‘big thing’.’ I know, I know, but she just smiled and accused me of not being like ‘normal buskers’ which is when I suspected she was better at reading body language than I was.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Normal buskers don’t look as glossy as you.’
‘Hey, what do you think I am, a magazine?’
‘Yeah.’ She laughed that jazz laugh again. ‘Are you sure you’re not some cool city dude with a flash pad overlooking the Thames? Bet you’ve got a glossy cat too; Burmese or Siamese?’
I pictured Chairman Miaow curled up in his fur-lined basket and winced. (I know what you’re thinking: how does she do it, right?)
‘Don’t worry, ‘Simon the Busker’, I like your music and I like you. I just want to make sure we’re…compatible… before you play at our wedding.’
Then she took one step towards me followed immediately by one step back, and I knew as clearly as if he’d announced it over the tannoy: Ben the Broker was approaching so I took a step back too.
Close up, Wiseman’s tallness and posture made him look like an extravagantly dressed high jumper, but today there was something much more dangerous hidden in that upright demeanour of his. His body language for a start. Although his words were pretty stark too. ‘Sorry love, I’ve got plans tonight,’ he said, looking over Marcie’s head. (Well, I knew I wasn’t missing much, but Marcie looked a bit disappointed.)
‘Hey, you okay, mate?’
He looked right through me. ‘Yeah, really good for a guy who’s just lost a huge chunk of his client’s money. God, I need a drink.’
I watched him scan the faces of dazed commuters, swarming around us like mosquitos looking for a place to land. And then he set off, walking with a frantic, purposeful stride, both hands balled into fists at his side. I felt sweat drip like treacle from my armpit to my elbow. This was bad; very bad.
‘Hold this,’ I said and thrust my guitar into Marcie's hands.
He turned back towards the platform. I ran after him, his high-jump stride easily outpacing my scramble to keep up.
The platform was five deep with commuters looking at their phones, shuffling forwards, shuffling sideways. One or two sensed his presence and melted away. I nudged closer, my heart drumming an insistent message against my ribs.
I heard the train in the tunnel, a throaty roar. I watched him hover, teetering on the brink. A memory shot from my brain to my fingertips as I jerked forward. I knew if I shouted, he could jump and shatter everyone’s lives forever, so I came to a halt behind him and, with less than a second to spare, grabbed hold of his balled fists, yanking him backwards with a scream that shattered my brain wide open.
He fell like a tree, stiff and unyielding, his body crashing down on top of mine. The train rattled to a stop as we lay there, dazed; Ben because he expected to be dead by now and me because all the breath had been snatched from my body.
By the time Marcie reached us we were both sitting on the floor of the platform looking at each other in bewilderment. The crowd of commuters exhaled as a cloud of relief settled over us.
‘Ben?’
He nodded, and then Marcie turned to look at me. She offered me her hand and I grasped it. She pulled me upright, cradling my face as gently as a child with a soap bubble. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. Then she pulled back and looked at me closely, her eyes serious and troubled. ‘And who stopped you jumping onto the train tracks, Simon?’
See what I’m saying?
The Best.
Judges Comments
Body Language Busker, the runner-up in WM's competition for Twist stories, is interesting on many levels, not least of which is that it's a character-based story standing out in a contest category that inevitably attracts a lot of plot-based entries.
Of course there is a plot, but it's entirely linked to the notion that plot stems from character. Writer Helen Parker has crafted a storyline that is entirely dependent on the reader's involvement with her characters – the first-person narrator, busker Simon Smith, his partner Marcie and her then-boyfriend, Ben the Broker - and the situations and backstory that Helen draws so well together as she creates the revealing twist at the end.
Because all the narrative threads are so well-woven together, Helen's twist isn't so much a shock as a moment of profound understanding of the layers of trauma that led up to Simon's tragedy-averting action. And all the elements within the story - love, trauma, major life-changes – are conveyed with a lightness of touch that makes the narrative voice credible as well as easily accessible.
It's an unusual story for its category, and a stand-out one too, showing that a plot device such as a twist ending can, when it's done well, work in thoughtful, insightful character-based stories as much as it can in ones that are largely driven by the need to ratchet up the tension to create a dramatic plot.