One day in the early 90s I was in Dundee. It was just before Christmas, freezing cold, and an old man was dancing in the street - not so very different from the man in the pic below.
He made such an impression on me that I wanted to record him and my feelings for him. So, I wrote a short story and called it, The Entertainer. I changed the location of the story to Manchester because that was where I was living at the time. I was fortunate because the story was read on BBC Radio Liverpool and published in the small press. I made reference to entertainers and to songs in this story - just to add flavour. See if you can recognise them!
When he was a young man, street entertainer Bill Solomon Grundy, had adored Ginger Rogers and worshipped Fred Astaire.
"Sheer poetry," he would say, "poetry in motion."
His own life had not conformed so easily to the rules of verse. Bill Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday, christened on a Tuesday, Married Ivy on a Wednesday and she had died on a Thursday - God rest her these last ten years.
Friday was Christmas Eve and Bill-Solomon was poorly. A steel-grey Manchester cold gripped his chest as pliers grip a nail, and his Christmas cheer had long since gone with the gusts of wind and hamburger cartons that tumbled up Market Street.
...no Christmas cheer for Bill Solomon Grundy. All you feel is your head burning and your breath rasping as your feet tap to the rhythms of yesteryear...
Between the bicycle rack and the litter bin, Bill Solomon was dancing opposite the spinning doors of Woolworths. Christmas Eve, and the doors had been spinning continuously since 8.00. For seven hours, Bill Solomon had been watching his image flickering like a Charlie Chaplin film. But Chaplin never had to compete with the Manchester buses, the Virgin Megastore or the pneumatic drills that snarled outside the Stockton Building. Bill Solomon's film would only be replayed in his memory and the memory is its own place, especially inside a fevered head. When he reached the part where the romance comes, the hero would be he, but Bill Solomon knew that nobody wanted to see this film again. The ending was just too hard to take.
"You have come back," she said.
"You came to me in a dream," he said.
"So why are you here?" she asked.
"I wanted to see you again," he said. "I wanted to ask you how you have been."
"And what can I tell you?" she asked. "And what will you do now that you are here? Will you tell me the things I wanted to hear?"
"No," he said. "I wanted to feel again what I felt before and to do the things we never did and I wanted to give you these blood-red flowers and ask your forgiveness. That is why I am here."
"But only in your memories," she said, "and I shall always be there."
"Yes, only in my memories," he said, "so tread carefully upon them, they are made of dust."
There was dust everywhere. Was it the pneumatic drills or the piles of rotting concrete outside the Stockton Building? The Stockton Building! The sound of it coated Bill Solomon's tongue in brick dust and his throat was streaked with it. When he coughed, his top hat slipped sideways and his nose ran. He saw himself in the glass doors. Flick - hand to head; flick - hand to nose; he was a clockwork soldier, but out of step with the music that played at his feet.
Those were the days my friend, you thought they'd never end... But they do, Bill Solomon Grundy. Round and round the garden like a Christmas bear. One step, two step and in the twinkle of an eye, she's gone...
Since Ivy had gone, he lived a life of straight lines and hard, cold angles; the dusty dark brown life of the public library and Radio Four news, Piccadilly Gardens when the sun shone and Market Street to earn a crust.
Something caught his eye. A flash of colour in the stained, cancerous blocks of concrete; a ray of light on the glittering pavement, a glimmer of love for the shoppers in Market Street.
It was a blood-red flower petal.
Bill Solomon Grundy leaned forward and bending at the knee like a ten-pin bowler, he proffered his hand.
"Watch yerself mate," said a voice at his elbow.
Before he could say, "I have been," a blow to the shoulder sent Bill Solomon reeling back against the litter bin. A flaying arm dislodged a pile of hamburger cartons and as he fell, a heavy heel came down upon the flower petal and crushed it into the concrete. A damned red blood spot from a gaping wound.
Lying on his back like an upturned beetle, Bill grabbed at his throat; he was struggling for air as he lay drowning in the dust and the hamburger cartons weighed heavily on his heart as if they were full of sand. Beside him, the music ground on. Mary Hopkin snorted:
...the busy years went flying by us...
Bill-Solomon lay floundering - a clockwork soldier with a broken spring. Through the dust and the mists of memory, a strange reflection flickered through the revolving doors. A young girl with flowers, an image of innocence, appeared beside him.
...those were the days my friend, we thought they'd never end...
And the tape-recorder stopped with a click.
A girl with a bunch of flowers skipped through the revolving doors of Woolworths. She shivered and glanced at her fat mother.
"Look mummy," and she pointed at the man floundering under the litter bin.
"Look at that funny man."
The funny man wore a yellow T-shirt and the top hat, which had slipped from his head, was lying on its end like a bucket. The hat was too inviting. After all, it was Christmas and the goose was getting fat. The girl plucked at her mother's sleeve.
"Mummy, can I put a penny in the old man's hat? Please mummy, can I?"
"Keep away dear. He's drunk."
"But mummy..."
She hovered at her mother's sleeve.
"Mummy, why is the old man crying mummy?"
The fat woman dragged her daughter towards the Arndale Centre.
"He's not crying dear. It's just that your eyes do that when you get old. That's all."
"Mummy?"
The girl was insistent.
"Can I put a penny in the old man's hat tomorrow?"
Here today, too late tomorrow. Too late for Bill Solomon Grundy whose life never conformed to the rules of verse. Born on a Monday, christened on a Tuesday, he was poorly on Christmas Eve and died early that evening. And that was the end of Bill Solomon Grundy.
The Affectionate Punch: Issue 4: 1996
BBC Radio Liverpool
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