Fancy Believing in the Goblin King... again!

 

‘Fancy Believing in the Goblin King’

by Paul Magrs

 

 

My friend told me a story he hadn’t told anyone for years. When he used to tell it years ago people would laugh and say, ‘Who’d believe that? How can that be true? That’s daft.’ So he didn’t tell it again for ages. But for some reason, last night, he knew it would be just the kind of story I would love.

 

When he was a kid, he said, they didn’t use the word autism, they just said ‘shy’, or ‘isn’t very good at being around strangers or lots of people.’ But that’s what he was, and is, and he doesn’t mind telling anyone. It’s just a matter of fact with him, and sometimes it makes him sound a little and act different, but that’s okay.

 

Anyway, when he was a kid it was the middle of the 1980s and they were still saying ‘shy’ or ‘withdrawn’ rather than ‘autistic’. He went to London with his mother to see a special screening of a new film he really loved. He must have won a competition or something, I think. Some of the details he can’t quite remember, but he thinks it must have been London they went to, and the film…! Well, the film is one of my all-time favourites, too. It’s a dark, mysterious fantasy movie. Every single frame is crammed with puppets and goblins. There are silly songs and a goblin king who wears clingy silver tights and who kidnaps a baby and this is what kickstarts the whole adventure.

 

It was ‘Labyrinth’, of course, and the star was David Bowie, and he was there to meet the children who had come to see this special screening.

 

‘I met David Bowie once,’ was the thing that my friend said, that caught my attention.

 

‘You did? When was this?’ I was amazed, and surprised, too, at the casual way he brought this revelation out. Almost anyone else I know would have told the tale a million times already.

 

He seemed surprised I would want to know, and he told me the whole thing, all out of order, and I eked the details out of him.

 

He told the story as if it was he’d been on an adventure back then, and he wasn’t quite allowed to tell the story. Like there was a pact, or a magic spell surrounding it. As if something profound and peculiar would occur if he broke the confidence.

 

It was thirty years ago and all us kids who’d loved Labyrinth then, and who still love it now, are all middle-aged. Saddest of all, the Goblin King is dead. Does the magic still exist?

 

I asked him what happened on his adventure.

 

‘I was withdrawn, more withdrawn than the other kids. We all got a signed poster. Because I was so shy, they put me in a separate room, to one side, and so I got to meet him alone. He’d heard I was shy and it was his idea. He spent thirty minutes with me.

 

‘He gave me this mask. This one. Look.

 

‘He said: ‘This is an invisible mask, you see?

 

‘He took it off his own face and looked around like he was scared and uncomfortable all of a sudden. He passed me his invisible mask. ‘Put it on,’ he told me. ‘It’s magic.’

 

‘And so I did.

 

‘Then he told me, ‘I always feel afraid, just the same as you. But I wear this mask every single day. And it doesn’t take the fear away, but it makes it feel a bit better. I feel brave enough then to face the whole world and all the people. And now you will, too.

 

‘I sat there in his magic mask, looking through the eyes at David Bowie and it was true, I did feel better.

 

‘Then I watched as he made another magic mask. He spun it out of thin air, out of nothing at all. He finished it and smiled and then he put it on. And he looked so relieved and pleased. He smiled at me.

 

‘’Now we’ve both got invisible masks. We can both see through them perfectly well and no one would know we’re even wearing them,’ he said.

 

‘So, I felt incredibly comfortable. It was the first time I felt safe in my whole life.

 

‘It was magic. He was a wizard. He was a goblin king, grinning at me.

 

‘I still keep the mask, of course. This is it, now. Look.’

 

I kept asking my friend questions, amazed by his story. I loved it and wanted all the details. How many other kids? Did they have puppets from the film there, as well? What was David Bowie wearing? I imagined him in his lilac suit from Live Aid. Or maybe he was dressed as the Goblin King in lacy ruffles and cobwebs and glitter.

 

What was the last thing he said to you, when you had to say goodbye?

 

‘David Bowie said, ‘I’m always afraid as well. But this is how you can feel brave in the world.’ And then it was over. I’ve never forgotten it. And years later I cried when I heard he had passed.’

 

My friend was surprised I was delighted by this tale.

 

‘The normal reaction is: that’s just a stupid story. Fancy believing in an invisible mask.’

 

But I do. I really believe in it.

 

And it’s the best story I’ve heard all year.

 

 

*

 

 Afterword - two years later.

Two winters ago I was told a story by a friend of mine. A true story, about an episode from his childhood he’d never mentioned before.

            ‘I met David Bowie once. It was in London, it was Christmas, and I’d won a competition. We sang a song together…’

            It was a magical encounter, and I didn’t stop quizzing my friend until he gave me all the details, and then said he didn’t mind if wrote an account of it for my blog.

            It was story I knew that people would love: the tale of the shy, clever, autistic boy and how he met David Bowie, who was kind to him, and as magical as anyone could hope for. And who told him about the wearing of invisible masks…

            I wrote a short piece about it and, within twenty minutes of posting it on my blog, it had gone viral. Somehow it had been noticed by people. David Bowie’s widow retweeted it with hearts, and so did his son. And then, suddenly, thousands and tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of fans were retweeting it. It made them remember how wonderful Bowie was: and they were pleased to hear that he was magical in real life, when you got as close to him as the character in my true-life story.

By the end of that day a huge number of people had read and shared that blog piece. Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman tweeted it at each other, almost simultaneously, and all their followers went on to read it.

It was like having David back – just for a moment. That’s what some people said to me. And that was true for me, too. I’d had a second-hand glimpse of that scene from back in 1987… but somehow the words that were spoken back then came to me very clearly. I felt like I was eavesdropping on the past. The expanded version of the tale that I started writing as soon as I posted the original piece felt very much as if it was writing itself.

I had to write an expanded version because my friend – delighted and mystified by all the attention his memory was getting – had carried on talking to me, and he gave me further details. He told me more about the Christmassiness of the whole scene, the snow and the crowded streets of London, and how the film showing took place in some old Victorian school, closed for the holidays. He told me that the Jim Henson puppeteers were there, with the actual characters from ‘Labyrinth’, and they came to life in that school hall, entertaining the competition winners until the star guest strolled in.

Many more details: what David was wearing, even how he smelled (like ice cream, said my friend.) I learned about the small side room where they played piano together, and where David knew that the boy and his chaperone relative would feel happier, rather than among the hurly burly of all the other children.

I spent a week hammering this material into what I felt straight away was the best short story I’d ever written. I tinkered and shaped it like Bowie worked on the magic dust in the air, when he fashioned it into his mask.

When I had my story finished ‘Stardust and Snow’ slotted perfectly into place as my title.

I’d always wanted to write a Christmas story. I have dreamed of writing something that could be taken down from the shelf once a year and read with great, nostalgic pleasure. For me, it’s Truman Caopte’s ‘A Christmas Memory’ and Dylan Thomas’ ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales’ and the most wonderful moments from John Masefield’s ‘The Box of Delights.’ Or Hans Christian Andersen’s ‘The Fir Tree’, or the festive chapter from ‘Wind in the Willows.’ Something like that would do for me! Something that readers could take out each year with as much joy as they brought out old boxes of treasured tinsel and decorations…

I tried out my new story on friends and other writers I knew. As the days went on their reactions came back, and people really loved it. They felt touched by the magic it described. People sat still in the middle of their busy days to give it their attention, and that, in turn, touched me. What was more, I got lovely quotes from people that could accompany the book as it went to editors and others involved in the world of publishing.

Well, the story went out into the world – and some people got it, and some didn’t. Some thought it too short, some thought it too long. Was it fiction or non-fiction? Was it for adults or children..?

And yet to me all the answers to those questions were easy: it’s exactly the length of story it ought to be. It’s true in the way that fairy tales are always deeply, magically true. And it’s for everyone, no matter who or what or how old they are.

Most readers felt as if they were meeting a wonderful Wizard at Christmas and watching him do magic, just for you. That’s how the child in the story feels, and that’s the feeling people take away. David Bowie is more than just a rock star – he’s a mythic figure. He’s a pagan spirit of midwinter in this story. He’s Jack Frost. He’s a beguiling Christmas Elf. He’s here and gone in a twinkling of a green wizard’s eye.

Last Christmas I made a tiny edition of the story, just to give out to a select few friends. I sent it like I would normally send out Christmas cards.

This year however, Obverse is making my story public. It’s coming out as a perfect little hardback in time for Christmas.

Just in time for every Christmas in the future.

I hope that each time it’s opened up by the people who buy it, or the people who receive it as a gift, it’ll send out a little shower of stardust that will remind you of the first time you read it, or the first time you heard it, or the time you bought your first David Bowie record, or the time you met someone you always wanted to be wonderful… and that’s exactly how they turned out to be.

That’s the feeling I want this little book to hold for people.

And now that it’s ready to go out into the world – courtesy of the wonderful www.obversebooks.co.uk – I look forward to hearing just how Christmassy and stardusty it makes you feel.

Paul Magrs, October 2019.