Meeting Mary PDF

Meeting Mary James Head I walk into the crowded pub and glance around, looking for the woman I’m here to meet. The place is packed, not surprisingly for a Friday night in a busy University town. Groups of twenty to thirty- year-olds, students, and young professionals, huddle, stand in groups, or sit...

Meeting Mary James Head I walk into the crowded pub and glance around, looking for the woman I’m here to meet. The place is packed, not surprisingly for a Friday night in a busy University town. Groups of twenty to thirty- year-olds, students, and young professionals, huddle, stand in groups, or sit around tables. Small clusters of people with their own stories and conversations. The bar is busy with customers trying to grab the attention of staff rushing to-and-fro, working non-stop, pulling on pumps, drawing beers, cracking open bottles of lager, and filling glasses from the row of optics lined up behind them. I start to walk over to the bar to get a pint for myself when I see her waiting for me at a table in the corner, running her fingers around the rim of a half-full wine glass – the two-thirds full bottle of a Merlot standing on the table next to it. An attractive brunette with wavy shoulder length hair, high cheekbones, and intense brown eyes that seem to glint faintly in the dim light. She’s wearing an elegant jade evening dress with a C-collar and a small gold necklace. Her posture is relaxed, but there’s a predatory stillness to her, like a cat waiting to pounce. She knows I’ve arrived of course. She picked up my scent the moment I walked in through the door. Even amongst the throng of the sweaty clientele and the hoppy smells of spilt beer, she can pick out my body odour and zero in on it. Such is the unique specialised traits of her kind – S’Rega. Evolution’s attempt at the perfect hominid nocturnal apex predator. She smiles at me and beckons me over, gesturing with her hand. I make a gesture with my hand in return – indicating I’m getting a beer first. She holds up a pint and taps the side of the glass. She’s already bought me one. I walk over and sit down opposite her, raise the glass up and say “cheers”, taking a sip. It’s a real-ale – a porter – and one of my favourites. “Why did you kill Klaus?”, she comes straight out and asks me. “I didn’t kill Klaus,” I reply, “a Russian crime boss killed him.” She sighs and shakes her head, obviously disappointed with my answer. “He may have done the deed – but you wrote the words.” She’s right. With my fingers, I typed the words on my red laptop all those years ago. I wrote of her journey across London – her anxiety increasing with every step closer to Klaus’s flat. I wrote of her terrible discovery of Klaus’s body.” “I needed to write your story. I needed it to be a gripping one. Sorry.” “But still, you didn’t have to kill him. You could have had him kidnapped instead – like you did with Ester in Venice”. “No, I couldn’t. Nothing happens the same way twice. I needed that intense response from you.” “Yes. It was intense. It hurt,” she states coldly, “I remember the pain. I remember my stomach churning. I remember wanting to retch the three cappuccinos you had me drink in the café beforehand.” She stares at me, accusatively. “But what I don’t remember – I don’t remember how long I lay there collapsed on the floor - after finding his body. I don’t remember how long I wandered the streets for afterwards.” I can only apologise once more. This meeting isn’t going well. I try to remind her that I brought her closure, justice, and a new companion afterwards. “How’s he working out, anyway?” “Nathan? Not a patch on Klaus. Whole bag of chips on his shoulder,” she complains. “Rubbish,” I respond, “That’s what you thought before Scotland. He’s earnt your respect – and loyalty now.” Her eyes narrow. She knows I’m right, but she still wants to make her point. “He’s not the same as Klaus though”. “He can’t be. That would be lazy. Too convenient for you. That would be very boring.” “Ah, boring! That’s why you keep upsetting my applecart. You don’t want me to be boring.” “You don’t want to be boring either.” I point out. “You were to begin with. When I first wrote you.” She stalls for a second. Her eyes narrow and small ridges appear on her nose. She’s confused. “I don’t remember that?” “You wouldn’t. You were too efficient – too methodical. You would have solved the mystery in a day and had Ester dancing to your tune – instead of you to hers. No, you were far too boring.” “So you… changed me?” I take a sip at the beer and nod. “I had to give you flaws, had to make you more interesting. You have to have a journey, you see: the hero’s journey, so you can grow and learn.” “Interesting. And have I finished learning?” “No, not yet. None of us have – not even me.” “You? You’re still learning?” “Yes, of course. Every time I write about you – I learn a bit more about you and a bit more about myself as well.” “Yourself? You make it sound like a symbiotic relationship. We’re feeding off each other.” “Hmm. Yes, I guess we are. I suppose that makes us both vampires at the end of the day.” “But I’m not a vampire,” she argues, “You made that point quite clear. I’m S’Rega, a misunderstood inspiration for the vampire myth,” she smiles triumphantly. She’s quite correct of course, but I don’t admit it. I’m the vampire in this relationship. Feeding off her adventures. She knows she’s won this point off me. “Will you kill me?”, she bites her lip as she finishes asking the question. It’s a question I don’t feel comfortable answering. My eyes go to her mouth and remain focused on the bottom lip that she’s still biting. Behind those seductive red lips are two canine teeth with grooves running down the back. Grooves that connect to the vessels leading from her venom glands – reservoirs of potent hemotoxin that could kill me in seconds. I know because I invented them. How ironic it would be now - to be killed by my own design. “You had something called ‘Plot Armour’”, I tell her, “For the first three stories.” “Plot Armour?” She’s not heard of this before. “Yes, it’s when you know it doesn’t matter how dicey a situation the hero of the story gets into, nothing is going to happen to them because they’re the hero - right up to the end of the story.” “Ah, that explains the fire – and Nathan’s just-in-the-nick-of-time intervention,”, she deduces. I nod. “But the hero can die at the end? Can they not?” “Sometimes,” I answer, “but I can’t tell you any more than that. Even I can’t see the future.” “You never start out with a definite plan for me then?” “Not really. I have ideas. They change, every time I write. I change things all the time.” “Perhaps when you’ve become bored with me then? You will kill me at the end of one of your stories?” “I don’t think I could ever become bored with you.” This much is true, and she can see the honesty behind my eyes. I begin to feel a little safer once more. “We shall have many more adventures together then, you and I.” she says reassuringly. “Perhaps. But you must realise, I’m not S’Rega – I don’t have your lifespan to write them.” “I could make you Moroi?”, she proposes. “Then we could have more time together.” “I’m sorry. It doesn’t work like that. My world is different.” I can’t bear the sadness I see in her eyes. “Perhaps others may write stories about you though.” This does little to reassure her. “Others… may change me again.” “Perhaps, but you, now, in this form, will be forever my Mary.” I’ve finished my drink now and glance down at the empty glass. “Would you like another?” I ask, more out of politeness than necessity. She still has one-third of the wine bottle left. “No thanks,” she says. “I think you’d better run along now anyway. You shouldn’t be wasting any more time talking to me – not when you could be writing my next adventure!” She looks at me with a mischievous smile as I rise and leave. “I wonder what you have planned for me next?” she asks, rhetorically, before adding - “A passionate romance would be nice!”- as I leave the pub.