A Slice of Heaven on Earth
What the Devil gets up to in his spare time
A Slice of Heaven on Earth
The banner in the village hall announces that it’s Charles’ 80th birthday. Below are tables filled with food. The Devil stands nearby, eating a scotch egg, napkin held below to catch any crumbs. He’s never met Charles, but he can’t resist a party at a village hall.
“How do you know Charlie?” The young woman beside him has a plate piled with buffet food. She might be making conversation, or she might be checking that he is supposed to be there.
“We worked together for a time.”
The Devil is lying. He has never met Charles, he just likes family celebrations. When he shakes people’s hand with just the right amount of grip, and looks into their eyes, it’s usually enough to persuade people he’s supposed to be there - particularly when followed up with a well-chosen question to move the topic along.
The Devil introduces himself as Eric. The woman says she is Alice, and the Devil thinks that she looks like an Alice. She’s a teacher, and he wishes he’d attended a primary school run by women like Alice. An uncle comes by with a camera and the Devil poses with Alice, even though the photo won’t come out. He feels less guilty about this now everyone uses digital and he is not ruining film. The Uncle tries to take the photo a few times but gives up when all he sees afterwards is a blank screen.
The Devil has always liked village halls. Nobody else knows how similar they are to the old halls that once dotted the landscape, where people shared warmth and food in winter. Now, it’s hatches, matches and dispatches, or the occasional big birthday. Bards have been replaced by mobile discos, but it’s still important for people to come together.
He goes outside for a smoke. His eyes are sharp enough to see the kids who’ve wandered across the road for a joint. A couple of men loiter by the cars, one offering the other some ‘devil’s dandruff’. The Devil is not impressed, since cocaine has never much agreed with him. He remembers the 1970s and a lost few weeks with an English rock star in California. Never again.
Everyone is called inside for the cake-cutting. He always stays until the cake is cut. Sometimes the speeches make him sad at how short life is - funerals come too close to weddings - but the good moments make him happy. He takes his slice, wraps it in a napkin and pops it in his pocket. He listens to a story about how the surly 15-year old, one of those who’d been smoking dope, once kept everyone awake as a baby on a camping trip.
The Devil likes stories and does not need them to be dramatic. It makes him happy to hear about long lives, celebrated by rooms full of people. He talks to the other guests, even spends a little time with the local vicar, who invites him to ‘pop along one Sunday’. The Devil is too polite to explain why he won’t take the offer up.
The Devil leaves when he starts feeling sad about a lost lover, returning to the cottage where he once lived with that wife. It has no bed, as the Devil never sleeps, but it has an excellent library. He places the night’s cake in the pantry, with hundreds of other pieces. The attic contains trunks full of fruitcake. The Devil’s memory is good and he remembers where each one came from.
Some Background
When I started the South Downs Way project, the aim was just to tell linked stories set around the hiking trail. Very quickly, the Devil became a major character. I now have a huge storyline about his life in Sussex. One of the exciting things about this project is how the small links between the stories have expanded into a saga. At the same time, I’m doing my best to have each story work independently.
I made a recording of this story in February. In this, the person celebrating their birthday is called ‘Alan’. I’d forgotten that name was already used for a character in Alan’s Last Breakfast, a story in one of the zines. Sometimes these collisions work out, but this was a case where I had to make a change.
Recommendations
Back in the day, when I worked in various start-ups, each of them had an MP3 server. The companies would look the other way as a network drive filled with shared music. I discovered a lot of new bands like this, copying folders of albums onto my own computer, and I still have the CDs of ripped MP3s. Among the people I discovered was a rapper called Buck 65.
I felt in love with his mid-00’s albums Talkin’ Honky Blues and Secret House Against the World. They contained strange, lonesome rap songs that sounded like nothing I’d heard. I got to see Buck 65 live in Brighton years later and was disappointed when he arrived on stage with just a mic and a laptop. The show that followed was enthralling, as Buck 65 told us the story of the last few years, and how he’d had his heart broken. It’s one of the gigs I remember most fondly.
For a number of years, Buck 65 vanished and then returned with a substack. He has one of the most engaging writing styles I’ve read. He spoke about his frustration with some of the albums I’d loved, and how they weren’t authentic. His enthusiasm for hip-hop has rekindled, resulting in two new albums. I don’t love these records as much as I love some of the other ones, but I love seeing someone producing work they’re proud of, and talking about it so clearly.
You can sign up to Vertices here.
What else?
I was surprised by how much the announcement of Sinead O’Connor’s death moved and saddened me. I was never a fan of O’Connor’s music as such, and I only think I’ve listened to one of her albums all the way through (Universal Mother), but there are several of her songs that I love dearly. A friend gave me a mixtape at 17, which ended with the heartbreaking Black Boys on Mopeds. She turned up on Bomb The Bass’s third album with the searing Empire (also featuring Benjamin Zephaniah). Her voice sounds incredible on Jah Wobble’s track Visions of You. And the way she sings the title lines of her song Fire On Babylon often returns to me.
One of the few good things about nostalgia is seeing women who were mistreated by popular culture being reappraised. Sinead O’Connor’s life was discussed in detail on an episode of You’re Wrong About in April this year.
Have a great weekend, and see you next Thursday for another story, which will either be about lucid waking or leeches.
James