I’m sitting in the passenger seat of a car. How I got here I can’t remember, why I’m here I can’t discern. The driver is a man, but everything about him is nondescript, his clothes are plain, his face is one I find I cannot commit to memory. I glance in the rear view mirror, on the back seat is a couple wearing tuxedos, they are kissing. I blush slightly and look away.
I try to look out of the window, tall hedges rush past, framed by an endless blue sky. We crest a hill and for a moment an opulent manor house is visible over the artificial horizon. I shift restlessly in my seat, craning my neck to better see our destination.
No sooner have I sat back than the car slows down, in front of us on this tiny, winding stretch of country road a red Ford Sierra is parked, horsebox in tow. The car fills with the acrid scent of smoke, I look behind me; the couple have stopped kissing and are now sharing a cigarette, which, I think idly, is almost the same thing.
There’s a tap on my window, I jump out of my skin. Standing outside is a woman, her hair is an elegant cascade of chestnut pincurls, she wears a long yellow coat, her left hand buried in her pocket. She opens my door and gestures that I get out. Dumbly, I comply.
“You made it.” She says in a soft Italian accent, almost emotionlessly. It seems to me that she doesn’t actually care that I made it, this is simply a statement of fact. “Follow me.”
She leads me up the ramp into the horsebox, and bolts the door behind us, we stand in the dark, the seconds draw out. Her perfume mingles with the scent of horses.
“I have a question for you; can you tell me the name of your first love?”
I blink, but in the dark the difference is almost impossible to determine “Sure… Evelyn, his name was Evelyn.”
“His?” She sounds incredulous.
“Well, yes, it’s a boys name and a girls name. It means the desired.” I mean to sound nonchalant but it comes out wistful.
She makes no reply, instead, I hear her walk away from me, the sound of straw beneath her feet. She flicks a switch and a turquoise dress is illuminated.
“Fashion is torture, right?” She says with an empty smile. “I’ll leave you alone to change.” She unbolts the door, leaves and shuts it again behind her, her footsteps grow ever quieter with the seconds.
I sigh and survey the garment before me: it’s awfully pretty, not something I’d ever choose to wear myself; the bust is too low and the hemline too high, and there are no sleeves. I run the fabric through my fingers. It’s satin.
It dawns on me as I change that I have absolutely no idea why she had asked me about Evelyn or indeed why I’m here at all. I had not thought of Evelyn in some weeks now, I had thought I was over him, but the very mention of his name sends a sharp pang of regret through my heart.
I slip the shoes on as the horsebox starts to move. I stumble slightly, gripping the slats in the side for balance. The world beyond rushes by; gold fields and green trees, the sun hangs low in the sky, A kestrel makes wide circles in the yawning sky.
And then, very suddenly, the world goes black. I’m plunged into the most velvet darkness, so deep I scarcely realise my eyes are open. The horsebox pulls gently to a stop and the door opens. By the light of her digital watch the woman takes me by the hand and leads me out into the unknown.
As we begin to walk my eyes adjust to the dim light, I am in a vast warren of caverns, the air is cold and damp, water drips icily onto my bare shoulders. I shiver.
“My name is Francesca Tosa.” She says “I was an opera singer, have you heard of me?” She asks.
“I confess, I don’t really follow opera.” I admit sheepishly.
She looks at me and tuts before moving on. “We’re deep underground.” She gestures widely around us “this used to be a diamond mine, but no diamonds were ever found here. These days it’s something of a secret. Very few people know it’s here.”
We turn a corner and emerge into a vast cavern, sunlight streams in chinks from somewhere high above, casting dancing shapes onto a subterranean lake. On the far shore fires burn and silhouettes move through the light. A few feet away is a small rowing boat, Francesca leads us to it and begins to row.
We have gone a little way when she pipes up again “I need you to answer a question, listen close, it is important.” I straighten visibly. “Tell me, are you heartbroken?”
“N-no” I stutter automatically, hoping I’ve given the right answer, something about this woman terrifies me, there’s something in her eyes that makes me measure the depth of the water beneath us and the distance to shore.
Francesca sits back and keeps rowing “Good.” she says passively “You’d be no use at all if you were heartbroken.” I let out a breath I had not realised I was holding, “You can recognise the heartbroken so easily” she continues gazing out at the far shore, the fire reflected in her eyes “I mean, look at them.”
I look closely at the figures on the shore; they are human, howling, screeching and wailing, but human. They are dressed in their finest, but they seem to have been that way for a long time, their clothes are outdated and tattered, hair is unkempt and the girls’ make up streams down their faces as if they have cried so long they can no longer count the days. All dressed up with nowhere to go I think solemnly.
Francesca takes a loaf of bread from under her bench and begins breaking it into pieces, throwing it in the direction of the humans, they snatch the pieces from the air and fight for the bits that fall to the ground. My chest feels tight and a sadness I cannot place grips me for a reason I can’t remember.
“Every time a person falls in love” Francesca says once she is all out of bread “they run the risk of being heartbroken. That’s why these colonies exist, it gives them someone to talk to.” She smiles like these distressed people trapped in this gloomy, dripping cave is a good thing. I move my eyes to my lap.
She rows closer to the shore and helps me out of the boat. Once we are on our feet she indicates a cave not far from where we stand, above the mouth neon writing, which has seen better days, reads: The Tunnel Of Love.
“You must enter The Tunnel Of Love, go up the rope ladder and into a kitchen. Ask for Steve.” She shouts her last words over the howling of the humans around her, something seems to have whipped them into a frenzy, I feel like I should fear them but I only feel sorrow. “Go, go quickly, before they get you to play Twister.”
It’s dark inside the tunnel of love, so dark, I brush my fingers against the walls and lead myself by touch. I stumble once, I seem to drown in the sickening feeling of falling before I steady myself.
I feel as if I have been walking for miles, but it must’ve only been 30 feet, behind me I still see fires burning. I think of Evelyn, the colour of his eyes and the way his graceful hands that glide through the air in elegant little circles when he speaks of something he cares about. I wonder with a sad little smile if he’s thinking of me as I think of him.
Eventually, I see a shaft of light illuminating the fabled rope ladder like it’s an ascension to some heavenly place. I grip the closest wrung and look upwards, the light comes from a toy torch, attached somehow to the top of the tunnel. I inhale deeply and begin to climb, the ladder swings horridly at first, it’s so difficult to get a proper foothold in heels. All too soon I reach for the next wrung of the ladder and find that I am at the top, above me is a trapdoor, barely big enough for me to squeeze through.
I haul myself through on the palms of my hands and land in what has to be the least ladylike manner. Around me I see steel countertops and shelves full of beans and custard powder. Across the kitchen a portly man wearing sandals with thinning grey hair looks at me curiously, a knife clutched in his hand. He’s chopping liver.
“Um… Hello.” I smile nervously and scrabble to my feet.
He looks me up and down “Hello.”
“I-I’m looking for Steve” my voice is drowned out by his chopping.
“Pardon?” He scrapes the liver into a dog bowl.
“Steve.” I repeat “I’m looking for him.”
The chopping man smiles sadly “Well you’re in luck.” He pierces another piece of meat with the tip of his knife and holds it up so I can see. “You found him… well, his heart at least.”
I frown, inside, part of me begins to scream. “What?”
He doesn’t seem to hear me “Unfortunately, Steve’s heart wasn’t broken, so now it’s only fit for dog food. I’m just chopping it up for Dido.”
“T-That’s human heart?” My voice is so small I barely hear it.
He looks as if he is about to reply, but then he stops, sniffs the air. “Horses.” he says, his eyes focused on a place I cannot see, remembering. “And a certain perfume.” He focuses back on me “Do you know a woman called Francesca Tosa?” He tries to keep his voice light, but there’s an edge to it.
“Y-yes, I’ve just been with her. Why?”
He shrugs, his eyes cloud with tears. He shakes a thick finger in the air and turns away from me, heading towards a greasy old phone mounted on the wall. He dials an internal number.
“Hello? Yes. Inform Lockheart that the Italian is on the premises.” He hangs up abruptly and walks back to me.
A long moment of silence passes before he composes himself enough to speak “My name is the Weeping Butcher, Francesca was my lover.” His voice quavers slightly towards the end of his sentence. “I was in cookery school in Verona when we met, she was an amateur Soprano.” He chuckles hollowly, a single tear escapes him and rolls down his fat face. “She’s a lesbian now. She doesn’t want me any more.”
I tilt my head, fighting the compulsion to touch his arm or do something, anything, to console him. “And you never really got over her?” He shakes his head, tears pepper his purple smock. I try to smile comfortingly but it feels sickly “I know how that feels.”
“My real name is Carol.” He tells me with a sniff “But no one calls me that any more.” He turns away, hiding his face, he taps the side of the dog bowl with his knife, the metallic sound cuts through the air like invisible ammunition. “Dido.” he calls, it takes me a second to realise he’s talking to the dog. “Dido, din dins.” Into the room lollops a gold-bellied Doberman, hungry and slobbering. The Weeping Butcher puts the bowl on the floor and she begins to eat up the innards of poor Steve. I purse my lips and look away.
He turns back to me his shoulders slumped “I wish I hadn’t told you my real name now.” He sighs “It’s a girls name. It’s embarrassing.” He’s leaving before I can offer any comfort. “You can do whatever you like, listen to my Walkman, or take Dido for a walk, there’s a poodle in the garden she likes.” Then he’s gone, and I’m alone in the kitchen with a dog hacking up pieces of human heart. I feel sick all over again, only now I feel hopeless too.
Dido does not have a real lead, something I discover after searching the entirety of the pokey little kitchen, I rifle through cupboards of cutlery and Clingfilm, baking paper and turkey basters. The best I find is a drawer full of shoelaces all tied together and with a sigh, decide that it will have to do. I tie one end to her collar and wrap the other around my hand.
I scratch her head “stupid dog” I tell her as she blinks dumbly at me.
She half leads, half drags me through a manor house, the very same one I’d glimpsed in the distance on the drive here. We reach a wide, elaborate conservatory and a scruffily dressed boy brushes past me.
“Sorry” I mumble.
“Evelyn.” He mumbles in return.
I stop dead and watch him walk away, “Stop!” I call when I have regained my voice “What do you know about Evelyn?”
He looks at me blankly with slumberous eyes. Dido begins to bark at something I’m not looking at and tugs at her make-shift lead. “Everyone around here knows about Evelyn” he replies in a matter-of-fact tone. “Follow me.”
Dido tugs harder and the shoelaces snap, she darts away and I’m torn between chasing her and following the ragged young man. I dither helplessly on the spot, before eventually letting my burning curiosity get the better of me. “Wait!” I call and break into a run after the boy in the burgundy blazer.
He leads me through the garden, past a group of gymnasts making a human pyramid in the last of the light. There is a lake in front of us, he sits down and begins tracing shapes in the dirt. I crouch down next to him.
“What do you know of Evelyn?” I ask again.
“I know that he’s here, and you’re going to have to write him a song.” Evelyn’s here.
“Where’s Evelyn?” My heart races with the thought of him, the way he smiles, the feeling of his hand in mine.
He shrugs, he does not make eye contact with me “where is not important, it’s the why that matters.”
“Why is Evelyn here, then?”
“They say that there is a cocktail that can cure heartbreak.”
“And?” The desperation in my voice shocks me.
He finally meets my eyes “And you’re going to have to write a song to keep him.”
I laugh, it sounds wild around the edges “A song? I can’t sing, I can’t even rhyme!”
“Well you can always sell your soul for the ability to play keyboard.” The colour of his eyes are the last moments of sunset “Well? Would you do it? Would you sell your soul for the ability to keep the one you love?”
In the distance I hear the gymnasts cheer as they end their practice for the day “yes.” I breathe. “Yes, I would.”
He almost smiles “correct answer.” From somewhere under his coat he produces a little Casio keyboard.
“That’s it?” I turn it over and over in my hands “I sold my soul for this? Clearly souls don’t get you much in this economic climate…”
“Don’t knock it.” He replies, getting to his feet “it’s a perfectly good instrument.” We begin to walk away I steal one last look back at the lake, his absentminded patterns in the dirt spell a word: devotion.
I look back and he’s gone. I scan the darkening garden for and sign of him, but he seemed to have faded into the air. I wonder dimly if he existed at all, the little Casio keyboard in my hands tells me that he did.
I turn into an open side door of the manor and find myself in an ostentatious staircase, paintings of people I once knew; family and friends adorn the walls in gilt frames. Statues of people I met briefly, taxi drivers, waiters, people from coffee shops stand solemnly, staring. Their marble eyes everywhere and nowhere all at once.
I reach the top and find myself on the roof. Evelyn stands a little way away, his face in profile. The last traces of sun illuminate his delicate features, he’s every bit as beautiful as I remember him. In his hands he holds a cocktail glass full of a translucent, red liquid.
“Evelyn!” I call to him but he doesn’t hear, separating us is a vast mountain of books, all paperbacks. I reach out and take one, the cover announces proudly that it is called The Ballad of Peter and Stavrula. I put it down and pick up another, the dog-eared cover reads Love in the Time of Dog Food. And so it goes on, they are all romance novels. The last one I pick up is called Don’t Let Go. I do a double take; my name is on the cover. I put it back down and begin to climb.
The mountain shifts under my feet but I do not stop, I climb until the evening wind catches in my hair.
“Evelyn!” I call again. He looks up at me now, his dark hair shines, he smiles sadly at me.
“I wondered how long it’d be before I’d see you again.”
“I’ve missed you, Evelyn.”
He bites his lip “I was hoping you wouldn’t say that.”
“Why?” I can hear my heart beating in my ears
He takes a deep breath “Because it’s over, I’m sorry, I need to move on. We can’t deal with heartbreak forever.”
I go cold, I feel like I’ve been shot through the heart. “B-but…” I stammer uselessly.
He shrugs “I’m sorry, I really am, but it’s over.” In his hand something yellow glitters, a match, “We have to burn this place down.” he casts it onto my mountain, my stronghold. The flames begin to crackle warmly. He looks at me with apologetic eyes and starts to walk away.
I grit my teeth, the flames will take a while to reach me up here, so I sit down, rest my keyboard on my lap and strengthen my resolve.
“Wait! No, Evelyn, Stay!” He turns back to me one last time, my fingers strike the keys with a strange grace and urgency, I draw in a breath and begin to sing my last song, my song for Evelyn.
(Based on my Hurts journey, to carve your own path search A5M4 in your Spotify search field. More information on Hurts visit their official website)
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