Under Plum Lake by Lionel Davidson

Author:Lionel Davidson [Davidson, Lionel]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Reinkarnation
Published: 2013-01-01T16:00:00+00:00

18. The Pleasure Drome

The trouble started at the pleasure drome where the manager didn't want to let me in. He said the pleasure was so strong it could burst my brain. He said I might be able to bear the next show, which was for small kids of seventy and eighty, and he'd think about it. We waited, and saw the people from the last show start coming out, and this was when I noticed their feet weren't touching the ground. They came floating out, and they were smiling. They had the weird kind of smiles that angels have in pictures.

We didn't bother asking the manager. We just sneaked in, to the big hall. There were rows of seats circling a central space. There was no stage or screen. There was just a space, with a green carpet. It took a few minutes for everyone to settle. Then the lights went out and some of the kids started whispering, and some of the others told them to shut up.

Nothing happened for a bit, then I realized that in the dark I could see the green carpet, and that it wasn't a carpet but the sea. It was bigger than I thought it was. It was higher than I thought it was. It was all round me and up to my chin, and I could feel it. It was past my chin. I was under it. There was green water all round me.

My heart was thumping, and I heard the kids squealing. I felt Dido hanging on my arm. “It's okay,” he said in my ear.

We were under water and breathing. I put out my tongue and tasted the sea. I could hear it surging. I could hear it whistling, and singing. It was uncanny singing, without words. It was a low moan going all the way up to a high shriek. It was unearthly and beautiful. It was like no music I'd ever heard; fascinating, of another world.

“Whales,” Dido whispered in my ear. “The whales are singing.”

And suddenly, in a colossal great smother of foam, three of them sprang up; massive whales, at least eighty feet long. They flashed past me, and I saw the whole length of them, mouths to tails, and swung round in my seat, and saw them fanning off in the sea all around. All the sea was lashed into luminous foam, and I heard the kids squealing, and saw their arms flickering up under water like seaweed to try and touch the whales.

There was a fantastic volume of sound as the whales tore around and sang, and spiralled upwards, and we went up with them; up and up through glorious green depths, with the water suddenly sparkling and lightening, until we burst right out of it, and the whales blew.

They blew huge spouts of water. We were cascading in the air with their spouts, and then had left them behind.

They were far behind, far below.

I could see them below; three whales, flicking their fan tails on the surface of the sea: tiny whales now, because we were going fast.

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