Richard rocked on his stool, flicking at the counter with a dishcloth. He was heading the same way, spending far too much time in front of Claire’s television. The three months since he’d met her already felt like forever. Okay, she was a good laugh – sexy, affectionate and cheerful. She ticked all the boxes, but, being honest, rather than have his boxes ticked on the eastern fringes of Worthing, he would so much prefer to be packing a rucksack and booking a flight.
The girl was still ogling him. For all her squirming and twitching, she hadn’t taken advantage while he was out. There was only one brownie gone and Maurice wouldn’t have shared it. He ought to be chatting to her, charming her, winning her repeat custom. Chin on hands, elbows on counter, he smiled. ‘At a loose end, eh? No sunshine?’
She blinked and nodded, then set about twiddling her straw, lifting it to suck from the bottom, her eyes darting like fish in a rock pool. He put a second brownie on a plate, lifted the counter-flap and headed towards her. ‘Have this one on me— Hey!’
Jumping up in surprise, she’d sent her glass flying, spattering the remains of the milkshake across the floor.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ growled Maurice.
‘Omigod, I’m so sorry,’ she wailed.
She helped him mop up, pouring out more apologies while he told her it didn’t matter at all. Then she moved herself and her magazine nearer the counter, to the table with the chipped Formica top and the wonky leg, where she sat, smiling shyly. ‘I’m not clumsy, I promise.’
‘You’re forgiven. I startled you. Come again. Bring your friends.’
A grin lit up her face. She was easily pleased.
Climbing back on the stool, he examined the café’s distorted reflection in the chrome of the espresso machine. Maurice was yawning, turning a page, drawing the girl’s attention for a moment before her gaze crept back to Richard.
Jeez, he was bored, and what was he playing at? His mother was the real problem, not the café or money. ‘Man, you need to get out of there,’ Joe had said last time they’d talked on the phone. ‘What kind of thirty-year-old is held back by his mother?’
Richard had no answer. Joe was right, yet she made it impossible. Each time he spoke of selling up to go travelling she visibly shrank. Her eyes started hunting for comfort among her useless possessions. She would go out with her shopping bags, foraging for more things to add to the hoard, and he would worry that she was pilfering again.
She had no need to steal – his grandparents had left her well off. Emotional blackmail it was, pure and simple, with always the same choice. He could give up his life to his mother, promise never to leave, and then she’d be happy, stop stealing, eat properly, behave halfway normally. Or he could leave, and she would unravel and end up in prison or worse. She was scarcely less dependent on him now than she’d been before his one and only school trip, clinging to his hand in the bus station, shaming him in front of his friends. He’d had to lead her away, calm her down, then surprise her with, ‘Got to go,’ making a dash for the bus just as its doors were closing and the driver was revving the engine. ‘Mummy’s boy, mummy’s boy,’ some joker had chanted. The thump he’d dealt him cost Richard his freedom. He’d been grounded all day with the teachers while the other kids had roamed free in Boulogne and practised their French.
Maurice farted, then sighed and shambled off to the loo. He consumed more toilet paper than coffee. Richard shared an exasperated look with the girl, then put his forehead on the counter and contemplated his trainers. Get a grip. Keep things in proportion. Make a plan.
His mother was insecure – that was the problem he needed to tackle. He must swallow his impatience, stop getting into arguments with her, visit at least once a week, show her he cared. Then fly off somewhere for just a few days, bringing her back an extravagant present. Once she’d survived that, then, softly, softly, a longer trip, a week or two maybe without triggering a maternal meltdown. Building up gradually to the big one.
He looked up from his shoes. Rain nagged at the window; gusts rattled the door. Nearly four o’clock. There’d be barely anyone on the front now, just a few intrepid souls in cagoules.
For starters, he’d stop mentioning Claire to his mother – the idea of a rival unsettled her. Perhaps he should break with Claire anyway. It was getting way too domestic.
The bell tinkled, and in blew a dishevelled woman, fortyish. ‘Do you have soup? I need soup.’
Wi-Fi and soup. ‘Not yet. Next week,’ he said brightly. ‘How about a mocha with whipped cream to be going on with?’
‘If that’s all you’ve got.’ She scowled, shaking out her umbrella and dumping herself on the garden chair by the barrel table. ‘Oxtail I was gasping for, or tomato. Something savoury, nourishing.’ She wasn’t looking at him, just grumbling into thin air, pulling earbuds and wires from her bag.
Delivering the mug to her, he smiled. ‘Are you local?’
‘What?’
‘Or just here for the day?’
She yanked out an earbud. ‘I’m trying to listen.’
Richard’s mobile vibrated. He glanced at the screen. Jesus, Mum, three times in one day? He would be there on Monday, he would be nice to her on Monday, what more did she want? He shoved the phone back in his pocket and drew up a chair beside the girl with pink hair. ‘Come on, talk to me. What’s your name?’
‘Tiffany.’
‘And don’t worry, it’s fine, but I’m curious – why keep staring at me?’
She was blushing again, mumbling something.
‘What? Who?’
She showed him pictures in her magazine. Some contestant she was keen on in Tomorrow’s Tycoon. ‘You remind me of him.’
Richard pulled a face. He hated everything to do with celebrity. His personal brushes with it had put him right off.
The girl blinked at him. ‘I never usually break things.’
‘It’s fine. I believe you.’
‘I told him he shouldn’t,’ she whispered.
‘Come again?’
‘The chocolate brownie. I told him.’
‘Doesn’t matter. Bigger problems. Forget it.’
A teenager with a crush on him was the last thing he needed. He got up from the table.
‘I could help you,’ she blurted.
‘Sorry?’
‘Be your waitress.’
Without thinking he laughed, then saw the hurt in her eyes. ‘It’s not you, Tiffany. I can’t afford help, is the truth. The café’s bust, or nearly.’
‘But that’s fine.’ She leaned forward. ‘Just a few quid now and then. No tax nor nothing.’
He shook his head. ‘It’s a nice thought, but—’
‘No!’ said the soup woman.
He swung round. This was none of her business.
‘I don’t believe it.’ She was looking at Tiffany, an earbud in each hand. ‘Harold Whittaker’s dead.’
Richard froze, shocked.
‘Who?’ said Tiffany.
‘A heart attack,’ said the woman. ‘Just like that. Here one minute, gone the next. Isn’t that awful?’
The air buzzed around him. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.
‘Who’s gone?’ said Maurice, coming back from the loo.
‘Harold Whittaker. It was just on the news. I can’t bear it. I really loved him.’
Maurice looked sceptical. ‘You knew Harold Whittaker?’
‘Not personally, obviously, but everyone knows him.’
Maurice dismissed her with a grunt and re-opened his book. Richard made it unsteadily back to the espresso machine, where he stared at the pad that said Bhutan, Wi-Fi, oxtail, tomato.
‘Oh, you mean that old actor bloke?’ said Tiffany.
‘Everyone! You see what I’m saying?’ said the woman. She’d come to the counter and was appealing to Richard. ‘Such a huge talent, such a beautiful man. I fell for his Mr Rochester when I was fifteen. You agree with me, don’t you?’
‘About what?’ he said, dazed.
‘For goodness sake.’ She threw up her hands. ‘Are you all stupid? I’ll have one of these.’ She paid for a slice of carrot cake and took it back to the barrel. ‘How dreadful,’ she grumbled. ‘They’ve been dropping like flies lately.’
‘Who have?’ said Tiffany.
‘Famous people. It jolts you. Shows it can happen to anyone.’ She put her earbuds in and subsided.
Richard took a breath, fighting to steady himself. For these three the moment was passing, nearly forgotten. The woman sipped her coffee, Maurice read Tolstoy, and Tiffany stared out at the rain, tugging at a strand of pink hair.
His mobile hummed in his pocket. Mum again, and now he knew why. His father was dead.
He couldn’t face her hysteria. Let the call go to voicemail. Switch the phone off. He was desperate now to be out of here, alone, to see the news pictures and think and feel for himself.
Quickly, into the back room for the spare keys and the end-of-day checklist. Could he trust her? He’d just have to chance it.
‘So, Tiffany,’ he said as he came out. ‘Still want to be a waitress?’
Her jaw dropped.
‘We’ll talk details tomorrow. I trust you. Lock up for me. I have to be somewhere else now.’
She was on her feet, her eyes shining. The soup woman and Maurice were staring. He tossed her the keys and the checklist. ‘Guard the brownies,’ he said, and he was out of there fast.
Friday
Harry
I have to get out of here. Please, someone, let in the noise and the light. How long has it been? Will I be imprisoned for days? I can’t stand it.
I thought I might self-destruct with the effort of trying to detach from my poor body as they unceremoniously stripped it, shrouded it in a green sheet and slid it, feet first, into this mortuary fridge. All struggle was useless. Whipped in along with the body as the door clanged to, here I have been ever since, unable to see a thing, feel a thing, not even the cold. All I feel is the time, only the time, passing so slowly it barely passes at all. Second, by second, by second, by second. Please, people, where are you? Come back.
Or no, rather let me wake into a new, normal day, with a full bladder and arthritic knees, the weight of the cat on my chest, his meaty purr in my face. Release me from this torture.
That absolute shit of a director! This is his doing. I was on set, clasping Cordelia’s limp body to my heart and giving voice to my grief as if no one had found the words before. Never, never, never, never, never. I was strong, at the height of my powers. I would be alive now if that idiot hadn’t kept calling for retakes and presuming to offer me notes. The jumped-up little Yank has no more notion of how to play Lear than I have of managing lighting technicians, and I was making damn sure he knew it when the vice closed on my chest. Then, too late – searing pain, pandemonium. Shouting and running, hands pulling at me, an ambulance, more shouting, noise, burning lights, and all the while the pain worsening, worsening, unable to breathe—
And now?
Silence. Impenetrable darkness. What can I do to shake off these slow seconds? I crave unconsciousness, no matter what dreams may come. The lurid colours of nightmare would be preferable to this black reality. Yet how to find sleep with no eyelids to close, no grey matter to alter its rhythms?
I’ve endeavoured to soothe myself by revisiting the great roles I’ve inhabited, the lines I’ve breathed life into, but such memories only serve to frustrate me. I should be out there now where I belong, soaring away, my face tilted towards the gods, each man and woman in the audience believing I’m speaking to him or her alone. I was made to perform – it was mine, it was mine.
I’ve recited lullabies, counted sheep, even tried plain, everyday counting: one, two, three, four... as far as six hundred, where I gave up in disgust, weary of the indifference of numbers and still wide awake. I would not spend another such a night, though ’twere to buy a world of happy days. I can recall an immensity of Shakespeare, yet I cannot sleep. What am I – pure mind?
In which case, meditation – perhaps that’s worth a try. I learned it, way back in the sixties, from wife number two, who wore beads and kaftans, baked hash cookies and rocked, vacant-eyed, to sitar music. Tiresome woman, yet her meditation techniques had the power to calm me. Haven’t had call for them in years. So... yes... empty my mind, think only of...
What? Not my breathing, for I’ve no breath to observe, no inhale, no exhale. A mantra then. Think only of ‘om’. Take it slowly now.
Om...
Om...
Second, by second, by second, but no, damn it, the knack of the thing eludes me. My thoughts take on the tormenting rhythm of time. There’s no escape from the silence, the darkness. Surely someone or something is listening? Please help me, show me how to get out of here. I concentrate my entreaties in what I hope is the general direction of ‘up’, but no answer comes. Truly, this is my dark night of the soul.
An eternity passes before I hear movement outside, my hearing sharp as when I was a child. Voices: good mornings and groans about needing coffee. Ah, please, soon, let me out.
‘They’re here,’ someone says.
‘That’s quick. Is he ready?’
And thank God, at last comes the crank of the handle and a flood of light. A young man and a young woman in facemasks are hauling me out. Sight, sound and people. Oh thank you, thank you.
My one-time self looks quite dreadful, his mouth a grimace, his flesh whitish-blue. I’m racked with renewed pity and sorrow for him, with anguish at his being dead and lost to me. But stop this, there’s no time for anguish, because now or never I must get away from him. I retreat to his toes from where I attempt to launch myself at the girl who is straightening his shroud. My mind stretches with certainty towards her sweet, pretty face. It has to be possible. She turns to walk away, and I’m with her, yes, nestling into the nape of her neck— But no, so far and no further. The girl has gone and I’m left behind, still tethered somehow, reading ‘Harold Whittaker’ on the label on a frozen big toe.
What in hell use is it being a ghost if I can’t leave the corpse? I scan the mortuary for fellow spirits who may be able to advise me or show me the way, but if any are here, they’re as mute and invisible as myself. All I see are more youngsters in white coats and a couple of black-suited fellows manoeuvring a metal trolley in through the door.
‘This ’im, then?’ says one of them. ‘Whittaker?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Some famous geezer, they said. Gold star treatment. We’re taking ’im off to be buffed up and coiffured. Full malarkey.’
They’re signing for my body, shifting it to their trolley and wheeling it away through the door they came in by, while I follow helplessly, doomed to play Siamese twin.
We’re soon out in the daylight, in a yard where the insistent nag of a rapper drifts from a parked grey van. Bedraggled London pigeons huddle on a wall, above which there’s a glimpse of blue sky streaked with vapour trails. Cold rain marked my death yesterday, but today sunshine pours down on the living. I make frenzied attempts to soar free. Why can’t I? What’s stopping me? I’m like a hawk brought up short by his jesses.
The undertakers pause to light cigarettes. One of them lifts the green sheet and peers at my face. ‘Dead famous apparently.’
‘Some actor,’ says the other. ‘Non-stop leg-overing, his ex-wife says ’ere. Probably bust a gut chugging Viagra.’
The tabloid he pulls from his pocket has the headline HARRY DIES ON THE JOB. It pictures me in a recent cast photo, fronted by my nemesis, the director. I’m looking, not at him or into the lens, but at the buxom blonde who plays Goneril. Her eyes shine at the camera, her lips are parted like Marilyn Monroe’s, and I’m caught in a moment of what looks like lechery.
Nonsense, all nonsense. How the camera can lie. It’s the assistant producer I’ve been bedding, a rather bookish brunette, not some ten-a-penny starlet. But ah God, now it hits me as if for the first time: I shall never hold a woma
n again.
The insolent man has lifted the shroud further and is having a good stare at my poor frozen penis. ‘Makes you wonder where it’s been.’
‘And why the fuck they bothered,’ sniggers the other.
Disgraceful. Outrageous. I make futile attempts to snatch the sheet back, but it slips to the ground as they open the van doors and shoot me onto a shelf – Hey, be careful – and dear me, there are other dead people in here. The hand of a young black man dangles above me. One of the men scoops it up, back to its shelf, and wedges it there. Across the aisle a grubby, grey sheet has slipped to expose an old woman whose flesh is the colour of rotting potatoes, whose head is little more than a skull. Her rictus displays gumless yellow teeth, and her shrivelled chest is exposed. Dear God, will I too come to this?
‘Fuck me, what a stink,’ says one of them, flapping his hands at her. It dawns on me I’ve no sense of smell.
The other flicks at a nipple. ‘Grab an eyeful of titty, Harry-me-laddo. Let’s see you get it up now, eh?’
I rage uselessly as they hoot with laughter. They’re collapsing the trolley and stowing it, screwing my shroud into a ball and tossing it at me, before banging the doors shut, cutting off the rapper’s drone. The van rocks as they climb aboard, and then we’re away, pulling out of the yard and driving stop-start in what sounds like heavy traffic. Where are they taking me?
The black hand comes loose again, bouncing, then swinging past me, fingers curled as if to scoop me from the air. It misses me by a whisker, sending me diving for cover. Death mocks me at every turn. In twenty-four hours I’ve been demoted from Shakespearean tragedy to a second-rate zombie movie.
There’s a mystery here, though, because how did I see the arm fall? No connecting window looks through to the cab. The mere sliver of a gap beneath the van doors can’t account for this visibility. The golden air softens the dead woman’s features and lends a great thespian’s nakedness some vestige of dignity. Where’s the light coming from?
The Posthumous Adventures of Harry Whitaker Page 2