THE BUSKER

David R Thompson

I remember the sun shining in that way it does when summer lasts forever: bright light in a vast expanse of blue skies, challenging the darkened blinds of sunglasses everywhere. My sister and I were investigating the beach on the Market Square yet again, looking forward to sandcastles and cavorting in the fountains. We hoped that no one would be silly enough to put washing up liquid in them this time.

As we crossed the tram tracks, we saw a busker. She was a girl with long black hair, playing a violin next to the right-hand lion, one of a pair which reclined in front of the domed Council House in perpetuity. My sister and I paused as we took in the swooping notes of the fascinating music, not like anything we’d ever heard before. It shrieked and then dropped down into subsonics in equal measure, a lament and a jig all at once, played in the key of sunshine.

The girl looked at her new fans and smiled at me, and of course I fell deeply in love with her. I was very impressionable in those days. I watched her furrowed brow as she concentrated on her fingering and the bow which wafted as lightly as the breeze. I watched her ruby red lips as they contorted wonderfully with the emotion in her playing.

Then she stopped. There were people around who had stayed to watch, but I was certain that she looked at me with a special little light in her eyes which said: ‘Watch this!’ She started playing again, this time facing the right-hand lion, turning away from her audience.

What happened next was the most astonishing thing I had ever seen; although admittedly, I had not seen very much in life up to that point. The lion firstly stretched out its front paws, and then suddenly shook itself. Sculpted stone that had been in place for decades simply fell away from its flanks like sand. The lion looked across at the busker, giving her a nod of acknowledgment, and stood up. This was too much for most of the onlookers and they scattered in terror. My sister was too terrified to move, and I was certainly stuck to the spot, but more from incredulity than fear. The lion, which always had such a proud face before, just looked ecstatic to have been finally released from bondage. It gathered itself, and sprang, clean over the roof of the Council House. The busker ended her magic with a flourish and a curtsey, and promptly vanished. I blinked and looked hard where she had been, but nothing could be seen except for a small toy xylophone on the steps.

The stone lion was back the next day, and of course no one believed a small boy who tried to tell them what happened the day before. But I knew what I had witnessed. And, as I got older and became a man, that was all that mattered.

This story was entered into the Nottingham Evening Post/Nottingham Writers' Studio competition in May 2014 and was 'highly commended'

The Busker