Vulgar Things

by Lee Rourke

  She’s beginning to haunt me more than I can imagine. It’s like I’ve been programmed to do this, or something, as if some force is controlling me. I have three perfect images of her floating behind my eyes: the pier, the creek and the pub by the station. It was her each time; the same girl, the same image of her. When I eventually do stop to think I realise that something is bothering me: it’s something about the way Mr Buchanan acted last night over dinner. He seemed eager to get rid of me, I think. Like something was troubling him.

  Another thing’s bothering me, too: the recording of Uncle Rey I watched last night. He seemed different, less manic, more in control. Now that I am away from the recordings – his voice, his words, his face, the eyes looking directly into the lens – now that I am away from all that, it strikes me that something other than the struggle to articulate his book must be happening in each of his recordings: each must reveal some sort of clue. There was this ‘Laura’ for a start. Who is she? What’s the connection between her and Uncle Rey? Then, just a moment ago, as I was waiting to cross Queensway at the pelican crossing, it occurred to me that Uncle Rey had been talking about my father. It was Father who brought Laura to him. Even before I reach the other side of the road I realise that Laura is my mother. Which is odd; she’s someone I hardly think about usually. Not that much, anyway. I haven’t seen her since I was a child, for a start. I can’t think what Uncle Rey is trying to say. It’s weighing down on me, but it’s all got to wait. I have to find her first, before any of that.

  I look at my phone. It’s early. Early enough for me to spend the majority of the day waiting for her to appear, if that’s what it takes. And I’m confident she will. It’s a matter of waiting. I’m just like a fielder in the slips in a test match: waiting for the event, the moment everything suddenly slots into place: positioning, geometry, trajectory, sight, observance, all colliding, all joining as one to form the event. Just as I put my phone back into my rucksack it begins to vibrate; a text message from Cal:

  how’s it going? been ringin you all nite. C.

  I look at my missed calls: Cal has indeed been ringing throughout the night; strange that I missed them. I count nine missed calls from him in total. I try to forget about it. He’ll only want to know how the clearance is going. I’ve other things on my mind right now. I decide to call him later in the evening, after I’ve found her and made sure she’s safe.

  I walk up the grass verge between Toledo Road and Queensway. I set my stick down on the grass below a large cherry tree and sit down. For some reason I look up at the sky through the branches: a thin veil of grey cloud is covering it. I think about what I saw last night: the constellations, the planets, all swirling around in the night sky. It’s strange to realise that they’re all still there, behind that thin layer of grey cloud, swirling above me as I sit here on the damp grass. Something grips me and I suddenly want to know if Saturn is up there. I need to know that everything is still in its correct place, just beyond and out of reach, just where it should be. The thought of it all disappearing is too much to bear. It all seems so fragile, too unstable, as if some fall or crash in the universe is imminent. I’ve had similar thoughts at different times throughout my life, of course. This is nothing new.

  I grip on to clumps of grass, as if I’m holding on to the entire earth, thankful to the force of gravity for keeping me from drifting off into space. I grip on to the clumps of grass as tightly as I can, just in case it all goes wrong and things begin to fall; in case we’re all suddenly flung off, in some massive jolt, some crack, all of us spewed out into the cosmos. I hang on for dear life; convinced in doing so I’ll remain rooted, firmly attached to this rock, while everything else unfixed shoots past me, out into the vastness, a great surge of things disappearing in an incredible whoosh.

  This sudden sense of ill-ease is eventually soothed somewhat by the well-timed appearance of a cat, sniffing my stick. I didn’t notice it at first and it made me jump. I let go of the clumps of grass, which in turn startles the cat. It skips off towards another tree to my right. From the safety of this tree the cat, a tabby, observes me, assessing if I’m a threat, something with food, or just something odd to look at for a short while. I call out to it.

  ‘Phssst phssst phssst.’

  Nothing. I call out to it again.

  ‘Phssst phssst phssst.’

  It decides to saunter over to me. I hold out my fingers for it to sniff before it decides I’m okay. The cat circles me a couple of times, meowing back to me, and then curls up by my side, all sleepy, purring, ready for a nap. It makes me feel like napping too, but I know this could be disastrous, so I straighten my back and make sure that I can see all the houses on Toledo Road. I count ten in total. Ten houses that she could be in. Although some of them could be divided up into flats, which would make things a tad more complicated. It still seems feasible, though. I feel content that I’ll find her at some point. I stroke the cat and wait for her to appear. While the cat begins to doze I gently look at the name tag on its collar. It’s called Homer. I wonder if it’s named after the father of the Simpsons or after Homer the Greek poet. I smile and hope it’s the latter, but something intrinsic tells me it’s most probably the former. In any case, it doesn’t really matter. It’s a lovely little cat, hanging around with nothing to do like the rest of us.

  Homer begins to purr loudly now. It’s a sound I’ve always loved. I grew up in a house without pets. It wasn’t until later on in life, when I moved in with my then partner, before the marriage and all that followed, that I began to understand the need for domestic pets. It took me a while, to be honest. She had a cat. At first, I would simply keep my distance, but slowly and surely it won me over with what I now recognise are universal cat tricks. It wasn’t long before I began to allow the cat to sleep next to me at night, when my partner was away on long business trips. It was only then that I appreciated the comfort of a cat’s purr: that shared primordial moment, the feeling of complete and utter oneness, contentedness with everyone and everything. The whole universe purrs when cats are happy, I’m sure of that.

  stranded

  I must have dozed off, too, because suddenly Homer isn’t here any more and the air around me is busier and colder, and the traffic on Queensway to my immediate left is louder, too. I stand up, my bones creaking and my legs stiff. I lean on my stick and check the time on my phone. I am angry with myself, even though I’ve only been asleep for about ten to twenty minutes. I know that anything could have happened in that amount of time. She could have come and gone from any one of those ten houses, she could have been bundled into a waiting car, walked her dog on the grass verge all around me, screamed for help from her bedroom window, anything, and I’ll have missed it. I want to shout out, to swing my stick at something, but I think better of it. Maybe I haven’t missed her? Maybe she’s at any one of those windows this very moment, looking down at the big cherry tree above me, at the entire grass verge, at me? Wondering to herself why the man from the pier, or the creek if she saw me, or the pub, is now sleeping on the grass verge across from her house? Maybe that’s what has been happening while I’ve been asleep?

  I look at each of the houses, staring in through the windows to see if I can detect any movement, any signs of life. It’s no good, it’s too light, each window is like a mirror, reflecting back a wash of green and grey. I stand here, my stick sinking into the grass under my weight. I need to be less conspicuous, to hide from view, but there’s nowhere to hide. It’s like I’m stranded. A scrap of litter, detritus buffeted from pillar to post.

  signalling

  Now I’m distracted by the same thin layer of grey cloud above me again, separating me from everything else beyond it, shielding me, keeping me rooted, covering me like a protective blanket. I want to pull it down from the sky and wrap it around my shoulders, take it with me wherever I go. When I look back over to the row of houses something has changed dramatically: she’s standing there, on the doorstep of the house with the big brown door
about to shut behind her. It’s her. It looks like her. The same hair and eyes, the same beautiful face, the same languid stance. I’m sure it’s her, my very own Laura. I name her on the spot, without hesitation. It seems natural to do so. My beautiful Laura standing before me. My heart’s thumping now. It really is, I’m not just thinking this, I can feel it in my chest. I stand perfectly still, my grip tightening around my stick. She walks down onto the street, shutting the garden gate behind her. I walk down the other side of the grassy slope, towards her road, skipping over the iron railings, about ten metres behind her. I follow her up to the lights and over Queensway, onto York Road, heading up what used to be the steep right-hand bank of the river looking southwards towards the estuary.

  Halfway up York Road, just before the car park on the right, opposite the row of Chinese cultural centres and restaurants, a man shouts out from a window in one of the many drop-in centres, hostels or halfway houses at this end of the road. Laura waves at him, signalling for him to come out and speak with her. I hold back just out of view, behind some parked cars. The man appears across the road, dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms, white trainers and nothing else. He’s muscular but skinny, covered in scars and tattoos, some of which are clearly prison tattoos. He swaggers towards her with both hands down the front of his jogging bottoms, a smile revealing both blackened and missing teeth. She hugs him when he reaches her, they both laugh about something, gesticulating wildly, then her face becomes serious. From where I am watching it looks like he begins to act out some kind of fight or altercation, some kind of attack or beating that it looks like he might have been involved in. He’s feigning kicks and punches, laying in to an imaginary figure, demonstrating how someone, maybe him, smashed something, a bottle maybe, over someone’s head. She remains stoic throughout the anecdote. When he finishes whatever it is he’s saying she gives him another hug and walks away, while he swaggers to his front door, just up from me on the other side of York Road. He tucks his hands down the front of his jogging bottoms. I’m not sure, but I think he glances over at me before shouting something to her in a thick local accent, something about her ‘nice arse’. She turns around, laughing, and gives him the Vs, a big smile spreading across her beautiful face. I begin to walk after her again. I want to turn back and hit him with my stick. I feel nauseous thinking about what he might very well have done to someone recently, and the way he shouted after her and the way she responded turns my stomach. She’s too beautiful for someone like him. I can’t believe that someone as beautiful as her could know someone like him. It just doesn’t make sense. It sickens me. It really sickens me to the core.

  a photographic list of dancers

  She walks left along the High Street towards Royal Terrace, where she turns left again and continues down past the Palace Hotel and through the cemetery at St Peter’s Church. Before I know it we’re on Lucy Road, at the top end next to Rossi’s ice-cream factory. Lucy Road is the centre of Southend’s sleazy nightlife, a back alley that runs parallel to the neon-bathed Golden Mile. By day it’s barren, filthy-looking, dominated by a huge litter-strewn coach park. I follow her down the street, and I count each of the desperately named nightclubs as I pass: Chameleon, the Liberty Belle, Papillion Music Bar, Bar Blue, Talk Nightclub, the Lounge, Chinnery’s, Zinc Bar, Pockets Bar (snooker), Route 66 Bar (pool), and finally Sunset Exotic Dance Bar. It’s at this bar that she stops, ringing the buzzer on a big black door by the side of the main entrance. She lights a cigarette with a match, flicking it onto the road. A large man opens the door, thick with muscle and fat, shaven head and tattoos covering his pallid skin. He gives her a long hug and she follows him inside. Is she a stripper? Is that what she is? I pull out my phone from my rucksack and immediately google the bar to see if they have a photographic list of their dancers, but I can’t really find anything other than a few generic shots of girls, all of them blonde, looking suggestively into the camera. Maybe she’s going inside for an audition? But why would he hug her like that? Strangers don’t hug like that. I walk up to the big black door and put my ear to it. Nothing. Not a sound. I spot her match on the road and pick it up. I sniff it, before putting it in my wallet.

  I decide to wait for her on the other side of the road, in the coach park, just behind a large white van. I stand there for a couple of hours. At least it feels like a couple of hours; it’s certainly a long time. It might be longer. Nothing. Nothing at all. No sign. No opening of that big black door. Nothing. I figure she’s either still in there, or she’s used another exit. It’s hard to tell. I don’t really feel like waiting much longer, and besides, I’m famished. I really am. It feels like I’ve been awake for days. I need to eat, to rest, to regain my strength. Even if I don’t see her again today, I now know where she lives, that’s the main thing. And now I know where she possibly works, I can visit the Sunset Bar tonight, when it opens. If she works here, she’ll be dancing tonight.

  painting the sky

  I walk out onto the esplanade on Golden Mile in the direction of Thorpe Bay and Shoeburyness. The sky is wide and the sea is flat. Kite surfers are gliding by, out in the estuary’s mouth, and in the grey distance beyond a huge container ship is interrupting the horizon, slowly making its way into the estuary.

  As I walk past the multicoloured beach huts at Thorpe Bay I catch up with an elderly couple ahead of me. They’re talking loudly and are blissfully unaware of my presence behind them. I decide to hold back, worried that if I do pass them I might give them a fright, especially with my stick. My stomach is tying itself in knots with hunger, I should really carry on past them. I can see Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a café in the distance. I should head straight there, but I can’t ignore their conversation.

  ‘You’ve always been awkward … ever since I first met you.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Remember the wedding dress?’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘The palaver we went through …’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Well, that’s when I knew I was about to marry an awkward bastard … sometimes I can be bothered, sometimes I can’t. I’ve been like this all my life, you know that with everything and everyone, and it’s getting a lot worse the older I get … and I’m getting old …’

  ‘What? …’

  ‘I said … it’s getting worse the older I get … It’s like yesterday with that poorly pigeon, why wouldn’t you let me take it home?’

  ‘I’m not having a pigeon in the house.’

  ‘But I could have made him better …’

  ‘They’re filthy creatures.’

  ‘We’re filthy creatures … we have cats in the house, full of fleas and things …’

  ‘Cats aren’t pigeons.’

  ‘I bloomin’ hate those cats …’

  ‘What have you got against our cats?’

  ‘I’ve had to put up with them for too long, always hanging around, scratching, falling off the furniture … I can’t stand them, Elsie …’

  ‘Why haven’t you told me this before?’

  ‘I’m telling you now.’

  They both stop: agitated, facing each other to carry on the argument. I walk by them without being noticed. The old man looks tearful, I think. I don’t look back at them. I think it’s best I leave them there, behind-hand. Instead I look down over the multicoloured beach huts; the tide beyond them has gone out and the brown mud is beginning to dry out in the faint sunlight that’s just started to seep through the thin veil of grey cloud. People are already out on the mud, walking in pairs, fours, larger groups and alone. I follow their footprints out into the estuary until they meet up with the feet that made them, out towards Mulberry Harbour, the old concrete harbour wedged permanently in the mud. Men are digging for bait, following the receding tide, children are running around, flinging the mud at each other – I can just about see them, rolling around in it, making strange little structures with it. Pools of sea water have gathered where the bed naturally dips, creating temporary eco-sys
tems to be disturbed by curious children, fathers and sons, friends. It’s tempting to go out there and join them, all I have to do is take off my shoes and roll up my jeans, my stick would support me, but it’s not a good idea, I’ve nowhere to clean up afterwards for a start. I have to keep in tip-top condition for tonight. I have to look as good as I can. So I continue along the esplanade, out towards the peninsula of Shoeburyness, my stomach rumbling along the way, my stick click click clicking in a peculiar rhythm.

  being wrong

  My mind goes back to Uncle Rey again. I’m beginning to feel a little guilty. I really should have made a start in sorting through his papers and belongings. People are counting on me to do a good, thorough job. But all I can really think about is Laura, my Laura, his Laura. I feel as though there’s no fixed point any more, except my obsessions, those recordings, the telescope, the things that need to be packed away and hidden from view. But the more I try to hide things, or, better still, ignore them, the more things are revealed. Why am I so fixated on the image of Laura? Why do I go on listening to these urges? What, or who, am I trying to save? What a complete and utter mess. Just like Uncle Rey, I have nothing to cling on to any more. It seems to me that if I let go of this Laura, like he did his, like him I’ll regret it for the rest of my miserable life. This is my lot. This is all I have. There’s nothing else for me.

  I have to find her, that’s all I know. But first I must eat; my stomach is turning and turning, it feels like I haven’t eaten in weeks. I need sustenance to get me through the day. If I am to find her again tonight, to save her from whatever it is she’s frightened of, whatever it was she was too afraid to speak about on the pier, then I have to do it on a full stomach. My strength has to be up. I have to feel fit and strong, ready to tackle anything that might be thrown my way. It has to be this way, for her as much as for me. If it even is her, I mean the girl from the pier. I might have it all wrong. I could be wrong, I mostly am. I’ve spent my whole life being wrong, feeling wrong, making the wrong choices, doing the wrong things. This could just be another repetition, the same thing … I simply don’t know.