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Listeners' Fantasies |
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Musical Archairs
by Gnome de Plume
 On the Fantasy Archers topic of The Archers message board, Gnome de Plume has been choosing music suitable for various Archers characters. Here's a rather poignant one for Helen:
Helen leafed through Nuts about Organics "for people who have a holistic view of life!!!" She reached for another low-cal, low-salt rice cracker (no nutritional value guaranteed!!! Those extra exclamation marks screamed emphatically the emptiness of the product, and the magazine). "An holistic view, stupid! Second syllable emphasis, starts with an "h"?? An hotel, An holistic ... People were so, so ignorant nowadays (mmm, did it apply to "An haphazard something-or-other?")
Maybe another packet of nothingness before going off to her room for another long evening? How about a video tonight: she hadn't seen her favourite film since yesterday morning, and it wasn't due back until tomorrow. Mmm. Yes. Helen smiled, or rather, her face grimaced in what she used as a smile nowadays.
The shop was quiet now. Most of today's fresh stock had been sold. That was good. Just a poster to finish off, then she'd lock up and go home, or rather, go back to her parents' home. Let's hope dad is in a better mood, she thought, her own mood dipping at the thought of him.
She reached for another cracker, but picked up two. She carefully dropped the fractionally-larger one back in the packet, and sucked slowly on the savoury caramel coating of the smaller one. Control, control: be in charge, Helen.
Her gaze focussed on the poster she was preparing for the shop window: large, slightly shaky letters proclaimed:-
Eggs that taste as though they come
Straight from the chicken's ...
That last word evaded her grasp. Helen's pen tapped in irritation as she searched her mind, clashing with the rhythm of the music still playing in the background of the shop's otherwise silence. What was it Betty had suggested when she popped in to compare the pricing of yoghurts and herbal teabags? Yeah, right, she said she was there just to buy a frozen raspberry smoothie, some free range, happy chicky eggs, some spicy stir-fry Chinese greens, those Fairtrade chocolates - ugh, the thought of the satisfyingly rich, dark chocolate melting on her tongue made her almost-empty stomach lurch, uff. Beddy claimed, claimed that she just wanted to check the time for the start of tai chi classes in Felpersham, and had the sheer nerve to ask her, Helen, if she wanted to share the lift. Neurgh! As if! Get a life, Betty! Her ticcing left nostril interrupted her boiling thoughts: relax, OK? Breathe out, breathe in. Time for a tiny sip of orange extra. Out came the freshly squeezed orange juice bottle, its label surprisingly worn, from Helen's capacious and over-filled bag. The vodka and orange sip warmed her through and through. Exhaaaaale, and relax, Helen. The thought of That Place Again was enough to keep the role play fine here.
Betty, bloody Betty:
"Eggs that taste that they've been plucked,
Straight from the oviduct."
Yeah, sneer, right. No O-levels, doesn't even own her home, thinks crimplene is a positive fashion statement, and she thinks she can tell me anything.
Helen thought, and thought, and thought. It was what she did all the time. Stupid, inferior people, all of them, unthinking, clumping round in their stupid, inferior ways: ways with stupid, inferior feeling things. Ugh.
Darkness sank over Ambridge Organics. Stupid people, stupid world. What a waste of space everyone was!
"Time to shut the shop." Her sigh was audible as she turned the key in the till, took the X reading - had anyone been there to hear it. Helen's heart, heavy as ever, tiring of the act of being Over It, fluttered unusually as the music strove towards its climax. When the song finished, she would turn off the CD player. How could she not turn it off during this, her favourite song? That would be infidelity to her own, one true love.
"Bum, bum, bum." The words reverberated through Helen's racing mind as the music rose and filled the shop, "Oh my love, my darling, I hunger for your touch." Tears pricked - as usual. Stupid tears.
She would finish the poster tomorrow. Beddy's "Oviduct" abomination irritated no more than usual. What? "Bum, bum, bum." The word echoed through her head, ruining her song, their song, her only contact with her beloved.
Unchained Melody swept to its romantically impossible conclusion, and the tape whirred and thunked to the end of its reel. Helen flicked the light switches, and turned the key in the door.
The poster lay unfinished as the darkness flooded the shop. "Bum" would fit, wouldn't it? Her life, and the poster?
In Helen's room, Ghost waited for her yet again in her video machine - faithful unlike anyone else. Helen was truly, madly, deeply in love. Still. She thought.
Didn't like the film of that, though. Stupid. There was only ever one person for another. And if you love them, you'll do anything for them. anything. Except Helen couldn't do the last thing.
Maybe she should check the times for those pottery classes. Tai chi, huh. Stupid, thought Helen. "I am relaxed. It's everyone else who's stupid and shallow and interfering and, and ..." words failed her, as usual.
Her tears didn't. As usual.
It was what Greg would have wanted. For the time being ...
What had Greg really wanted?
Helen didn't dare go there. And she knew it.
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