Read Online Spirit of Progress by Steven Carroll - Free Book Online Page B

memories, with conversations that took place and those that never did, but perhaps should have. A year ago, this time of day, she would have just been returning from being with him. The air would be crisp and clear, or damp and rainy. She rarely noticed. This, a year ago, would have been their time. Now their time is over. And, knowing that she will never again hear him say, ‘C’mon, let’s have a drink’, she feels that rush of old feelings running through her body. It happens every day. And this evening she is thinking of how it all ended. At first she can’t remember. Not clearly. Not who said what, or who said it first. Or how long it took. Ten minutes? Twenty? It’s hard to tell now, it was hard to tell then, because it all passed in a sort of dream. But as her tram approaches, its number glowing in the wintry twilight, she says quietly, ‘Yes, that was it. The Dancing Man.’
    At least, that was what they called him, Tess and Sam. And she steps onto the tram with these three words on her lips, oblivious of the crowds disappearing into the station and the passengers around her.
    They were at the pictures. A matinee, of course, since theirs was a daytime affair. The picture theatre with the ceiling, the famous ceiling. The same theatre that the Americans had filled every night of the week, the air always thick with the smell of chewing gum. Yes, that wasit. They were at the pictures. Sitting in the dark. Neither of them speaking. Just staring up at the screen when this newsreel came on. Peace, this voice was saying. Peace at last. And a street in Sydney (they later discovered) was suddenly spread out across the screen in front of them. Although it could have been any city that day. For the scene was the same across the country. Crowded streets. Never so crowded before, and never so crowded again. Or so it seemed to her then. Streets filled with all of those who had come through the war and now just wanted to live. Faces laughing for the camera, waving to the camera, waving to Tess and Sam, and everybody else sitting in the dark. And, all the time, shredded bits of paper falling through the air and landing on the ground already carpeted with the paper scraps of the time that felt as though it would never end and that finally did, and suddenly, because that’s the way time works. Endless one minute and all over the next. Among those laughing for the camera there was the occasional steady, still pair of eyes that were too tired to laugh for the camera, but thought they ought to be there to take in the scene, because, well, it was History.
    Then the crowd retreated. Except for a lone figure in a suit and a hat, and a few revellers in the background looking on. This figure, standing in the street strewn with the last scraps of the sad and violent years, smiling at the camera. And then he tipped his hat, greeting the new day (and it occurs to Tess, staring blankly about the tram, that it possibly was morning — the city in the newsreel had that look), and suddenly started this funny little dance withquick, light steps, all the time with his eyes on the camera and the audience out there in the dark. And then this skip to finish. Did he click his heels? She can’t remember. Then he was gone. Back into the anonymity from which he came. The anonymous Dancing Man. Leaving the street empty, except for the few stragglers and the paper scraps of a time that had finally been blown away.
    And the moment it was finished, this little dance of his, Tess knew that this would be the image, above all others, that they would recall, all of them, everybody, when they thought about the way the war ended. The anonymous Dancing Man, who appears and disappears. Doing all the things the moment requires. He tipped his hat because at such moments one ought to tip one’s hat. There is a protocol, either consciously or unconsciously recognised, that ought to be followed, at such moments. Or so Tess reasons. And so he tipped his hat. And so he