Eighty Days Yellow by Vina Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

sex or swimming furious lengths up and down one of London’s outdoor swimming pools.
    ‘Sorry, love,’ slurred one of the drunks, stumbling close to me, his alcohol-soaked breath hot on my face.
    There was a football match somewhere in town today, and two groups of fans in their regulation team kit, each supporting opposing teams, had clashed in the station on their way to the match. The ruckus had broken out a few feet from where I was playing. As usual, I was so wrapped up in my music I didn’t hear whatever remark one side had made to the other in order to light the fuse. I didn’t even notice the fighting until I felt a beefy body knock into me, slamming my violin against the wall and overturning my case, coins flying all over like marbles in a school playground.
    Tottenham Court Road station is always busy and well staffed. A pair of portly London transport officers pulled the brawling fans apart and threatened to call the police. The fire soon went out of the men, who disappeared like rats into the bowels of the station, racing up escalators and Tube tunnels, perhaps realising they’d be late for their match, or possibly arrested, if they lingered any longer.
    I sank down against the wall where I’d earlier been playing ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and held the two broken pieces of my violin to my chest as if I was nursing a child. It wasn’t an expensive violin, but it had a beautiful tone and I would miss it. My father had picked it out from a second-hand store in Te Aroha and given it to me for Christmas five years ago. I prefer second-hand violins, and my father always had an ear for them, an ability to survey a pile of junk and pick out the instrument that still had some use in it. He made a habit of buying my instruments, in the way that my mother and my sister bought clothes and books they thought I might like, and each one was perfect. I liked to imagine who had played it before me, the way that they had held it, the number of warm hands it had passed through, each owner leaving a little bit of their own story, some love and some loss and some madness, in the body of the instrument, emotions that I could coax out through the strings.
    This violin had travelled across New Zealand, and then across the world with me. It was on its last legs, granted; I’d had to patch it up with tape in two places where it had been knocked about on the long journey to London the previous year, but the sound was still true, and it felt just right in my arms. Finding a replacement would be a nightmare. Though Darren had nagged, I’d never got round to having it insured. I couldn’t afford a new instrument of any quality, or even an old instrument of any quality. Scouring the markets for a bargain could take weeks, and I couldn’t bring myself to buy a violin on eBay without feeling it in my hands and hearing the tone.
    I felt like a tramp walking around the station, picking up the coins that had scattered all over, my mangled violin in hand. One of the London transport officers asked for my details, to make a report, and he was obviously annoyed that I could provide him with so little information about the actual event.
    ‘No great talent for observation, eh?’ he sneered.
    ‘No,’ I replied, staring at his plump hands as he flicked through his notepad. Each of his fingers was pale and squat, like something that you might be disappointed to find on a plate at a party, attached to a cocktail stick. He had the hands of a person who didn’t play a musical instrument, or interrupt fights very often.
    In truth, I hate soccer, though I wouldn’t admit as much to anyone English. Football players, as a general rule, are too pretty for my liking. At least during rugby games, I could forget the sport and concentrate on the thick, muscled thighs of the forwards, their tiny shorts riding up and threatening to expose beautifully firm buttocks. I don’t play any organised sport myself, preferring the more singular pursuits of