The Cheek Perforation Dance

by Sean Thomas

  — NOT GUILTY

  Half a second passes while this sinks in. Then, nothing. Contrary to Patrick’s quondam daydreams of the last year, the tone of outraged innocence in his voice fails to instantly convince. The proceedings are not summarily dismissed. The court is not in uproar. The public gallery is not full of hat-waving citizens demanding his immediate release. Nor does the judge glance sharply across at the clerk and say what is this obviously innocent young man doing here, let him go at once.

  Instead the judge clears his throat and says:

  — OK I think we’ll have the jury in

  — Call the jury!

  — The jury …

  Patrick sits down. Around him notepapers have been unfoldered, pens clicked on, wigs taken up. Then the main door opens, and a procession of people are led in, Indian file, one by one. Two of them are indeed Indian: a youngish fanciable girl, and a middle-aged woman in a horrible, oversized jumper. Urgent, Patrick scans these two, and the rest of the jury. Patrick tries to remember Stefan’s advice not to eyeball the jurors for fear of frightening them, but he can’t help himself. These people are going to be holding his bollocks in their hands, and he wants to assess their bollock-holding fitness-for-purpose.

  Eight of the jury are women; only one (a man in a battered brown-leather jacket, with a wry intelligent smile) is the sort of person Patrick would consider even sharing a couple of beers with. Apart from the cute Indian girl. One of the men, a darkish, shortish, possibly foreign man, has an eggshell-blue nylon shirt on. With a glossy green leather tie.

  Patrick shudders.

  He is doomed.

  One by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one the jury is sworn in, each taking a bible in hand:

  — I swear by Almighty God to do my best to try the defendant according to the evidence presented …

  As the jury is sworn in, Patrick weighs up the irony of the fact that he is about to be tried by a man wearing a green leather tie. His fate is about to be decided by a man who buys his clothes second hand in … Azerbaijan. This pleasurably snobbish line of thought exhausted, Patrick finds that after this he is actually growing very very very slightly … bored. Bored? Patrick’s sense of doom, of pointlessness, of almost-being-extraneous-to-proceedings has metamorphosed into a kind of numb dull indifference which is barely a whit away from … boredom. From his dock seat Patrick idly gazes at the female stenographer, wondering what her nipples are like; until he is shaken out of his maudlin torpor by the annoyingly pompous voice of the prosecutor, Mister Alan Gregory QC.

  Gregory has stood up, and is saying to the jury:

  — Members of the jury, the case you are about to hear is distressing in the extreme. It involves the savage sexual brutalisation of a young girl by the defendant, Patrick Skivington – Gregory does the faintest of gestures towards Patrick; Patrick thinks how much he wants to staple train timetables to Gregory’s head; Gregory goes on – It is my duty as prosecution lawyer to present to you the evidence in a dispassionate and logical light, but also to convince you beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant was responsible for the truly appalling crime you are about to try – A second actorly handwave, then – The burden of proof, as we call it, rests with me. My colleague who is appearing for the defence – He wafts the same manicured hand at Stefan, who nods, smiles briefly – Has nothing to prove, as such. His job is more to sow doubt, as it were. However I restate that it is my belief that the evidence in this case is overwhelming and conclusive, besides being … ah – Looking at the ceiling; looking down – … Very upsetting, and that you should encounter no difficulty in finding the defendant guilty – A glance, a glance at Patrick – At this stage in proceedings it is usual for the prosecution counsel to present a kind of résumé of the indictment, a summation, but as we shall be going over all the evidence in some detail more than once I shall restrict myself to a brief precis of the alleged crime – Gregory pauses, gazes down at his papers in a somehow Oxbridge way; Patrick feels his teeth grinding; he tries not to listen to his own teeth, or to Gregory; but can’t help – The allegation is simply put: that the defendant, on the night of August twenty-eighth, last year, raped his ex-girlfriend, Rebecca Jessel. But, members of the jury, that bald statement barely begins to describe the true horror of the crime that, the prosecution posits, the defendant perpetrated that night. You all, I hope, have some photos in your files, these photos – Gregory suddenly and unexpectedly holds up a big photo and wafts it at the jury. Even from this distance Patrick can see a picture of his and Rebecca’s bedroom. Eyes left, Patrick sees the jurors reaching in folders and looking at the same photo and nodding back at the prosecutor, who smiles so ingratiatingly and says some more stuff that Patrick succeeds in blocking out. For a few moments Patrick is successful in not hearing anything, but then the prosecutor gets a little louder, as if approaching his peroration, and the loudness forces Patrick to listen, to hear Gregory say – Nor was this just a simple case of non-consensual vaginal penetration, the technical definition of rape. No, the prosecution holds that this man, the defendant, also subjected this terrified girl to a number of other degrading acts, to coercive anal penetration, to forced oral sex, to various other sadistic sexual crimes, some of which are dealt with in the ancillary indictments – Adjusting his wig Gregory stands back a touch, as if thinking; then he looks up and goes on – I shall be bringing medical evidence to support this claim. A deal of evidence that will require a … strong stomach – Patrick feels his own jaw chewing, jaw-going, his jaw, jawing, hurting – And now, with the court’s permission, I should like to call the alleged victim, Rebecca Jessel, to the stand

  Patrick lifts and shakes his head and tries to stare bravely at the wall, at the neutral wall above the judge’s head. A faint tiny prickling behind his eyes indicates to Patrick Skivington that he would probably be crying if he were ten years old and being picked on like this in the school yard.

  Patrick does not cry. He stares forward.

  Wasp-face! Dog-features! Badger-breath!

  4

  — Great arse?

  — … Yes

  — Great arse?

  — So?

  — Ha! This Patrick guy – Murphy picks up a pencil, waggles it – Smooth-talking bastard!

  — It was a book …

  —Yep OK

  — I was looking at a book, of French rococo art

  — Sure, Becs

  — No you don’t understand he was looking over my shoulder, at that picture by Boucher – Murphy not responding, Rebecca goes on – The painting of that girl with her bottom in the air, so you see it was really quite sharp

  Murphy percusses the end of the pencil against her lips:

  — It isn’t big and it isn’t clever

  — Murf!

  — I don’t mind you lying to me, it’s when you lie to yourself

  — Ohhh

  Amused but frustrated Rebecca says no more. Instead she leans against the edge of Murphy’s desk: the only furniture of note in the pale-blond-wooden-floored, mostly white-matt-walled emptiness of Schubert & Scholes, Murphy’s gallery.

  Rebecca:

  — How long has it been since you had a shag Murf?

  — He just sounds rough. Very rough … – Murphy is twirling the pencil like a tiny baton between her fingers – Tell me about his criminal record again?

  — It’s nothing heavy

  — Oh, only a tiny little bit of GBH

  — He got in a couple of fights when he was at Uni

  — A couple of fights. Jesus! – Murphy sticks the pencil into her hair, twists hair around the end — That’s why they threw him out of his college, the University of Tesco’s Car Park, or wherever it was? Right?!

  — Yyyess

  — Let’s face it, he’s a bloody caveman

  Rebecca tilts her head:

  — Mmm. Sexy, isn’t it?

  — No – Murphy snaps – It’s not. It’s wanky. The guy’s a musclebound fuck-wit
and you’re all gooey-eyed. Christ! – Murphy gazes into the eyes of her friend – What about all that feminism stuff we studied at Edinburgh, what about Simone de Beauvoir and … that other French cow?

  — You should see him when he’s got a bit of stubble

  — Ohhh … – The pencil falls from Murphy’s fingers, bounces off a two-month-old edition of Blueprint magazine, and spins to the pale-blond-wood floor. Murphy looks down, says – I presume you’ve shagged him already?

  — He’s such a spunk

  — So that makes it OK? You atrocious slut

  Surveying a pile of oversized metal film canisters stacked carefully in one corner of the gallery, Rebecca says:

  — Actually we haven’t – Looking back at her surprised-looking friend, meaningfully – I only went down on him

  A clucking noise from Murphy; Rebecca:

  — Which I thought was rather restrained

  — Restrained?

  — Comparatively

  Murphy:

  — Fifteen minutes after meeting the bloke you’re on your knees wrestling with his zipper … restrained?

  — Nice and big, by the way

  — ?

  — And thick

  Murphy laughs:

  — Girth?

  — Gerrrrrrtthh!

  — We Like Gerrrrrtthhhhh!!

  Their chorus done, Murphy shakes her head and says:

  — Just don’t come running when he goes and dumps you you hairy old SLAPPER

  A pause. Murphy is bending to pick up the pencil from the floor. Watching her friend bend over, Rebecca assesses her friend’s shortish brown hair; her lithe figure; the cuttlefish tattoo she can see above her friend’s new jeans-belt. Rebecca, idly:

  — Love the belt

  — Yeah?

  Saying ‘yeah I do’, Rebecca sits back against the desk again. Looking at a grainy art photo of a power station on the wall, Rebecca says:

  — Actually, we’ve only kissed

  — Yeah right – Murphy looks sarcastic and uncomprehending and pleased at the same time – Three dates: and you’ve only kissed? Honestly?

  — Honestly

  — Wow … – Murphy pretends to get up from her chair – Do you want to lie down? I’ll get you a blanket

  — I think … he’s a bit … inhibited

  — Inhibited?

  — Well, I told him

  — No!

  — Couldn’t help it. He took me to some club he knows … and we started talking about sex and – Rebecca grins self-consciously – I just stupidly came out with it

  — Jesus

  — I know – Rebecca mumbles a laugh – Maybe it was a slight mistake

  — I’ve told you, Becs: it frightens them

  — But it’s just the truth

  Murphy shakes her head:

  — Twenty-eight different lovers is quite a lot for a twenty-two-year-old Rebecca, smiling:

  — Rather more than he as it turned out

  — Where’d he take you then?

  — Thirty-one anyway … sorry?

  — Your second date. Where?

  — I told you, this club, he knows all these places in Soho cause of

  — No, before the club

  — Oh, some posh restaurant

  — Hope he paid

  — Of course. It’s so awfully unfair isn’t it?

  A confirming grin, then Murphy says:

  — Don’t tell ’em – Murphy cocks a finger to her lips – They’ll figure it out one day, don’t let on …

  Rebecca nods, distracted, says ‘uh-huh’. Again, she looks appraisingly at her friend. Rebecca wonders if and when her best friend will get a boyfriend. Then she wonders if her own impending relationship will affect her friendship with Murphy; then Rebecca realises she has no idea what effect her possible love affair with Patrick will have, because she’s never been in love before. In which case, how does she know she is falling in love now? Simply because she’s more anxious than normal, more nervously upbeat? More keen to submit?

  As if telepathically, Murphy says:

  — I suppose you’re going to go and fall in love with this bozo aren’t you?

  — No

  — YES – Murphy is sighing, urbanely – You’re going to sleep with him tonight and by next week you’ll be texting him messages on his phone and by autumn you’ll be wearing his bloody shirts and then – Murphy stops, nods to herself, decides on the rest of her speech – Then by next spring when you both walk home from restaurants you’ll start looking casually in estate agents and then … and then … – Searching for the right part of London, Murphy goes on, emphatically – Then you’ll move in to some stupid stupid flat in Clapham and that’ll be it. Finito. After that you’ll only ever ring me when he’s been horrible to you and then you’ll have a baby and move to Suffolk and spend the weekend wearing Aran jumpers and God it’s so annoying

  — You’re jealous. Sweet

  — Course I’m fucking jealous – Murphy shakes her head in amazement – Why shouldn’t I be jealous. Just don’t get hurt? K?

  — You might be wrong anyway – Rebecca glances at the precious-metal watch, the watch her father bought her for her eighteenth. This makes her feel a pang of something. Some regret – He’s a bit rough in some ways … – She makes a thoughtful face – Anyway I’m meeting him at the pub down the road, in a minute

  Murphy, calmer:

  — You did say he lives round here, right?

  — Ya, it’s convenient for his job – Rebecca looks out of the window, as if expecting Patrick to walk by – S’just down the road

  — So that’s why he fetched up every time we had a sarny

  — Yes – Rebecca thinks about Patrick’s flat; about the kiss on the sofa, the hand on her nipple – He’s got a nice flatmate, very shaggable

  Murphy looks up, helpless:

  — Really?

  — Really. Joe … something. Cute bod. Bit of a druggie

  — Mmmm?

  — Wears a good pair of jeans …

  — Ooooh …

  Rebecca starts laughing at Murphy’s melodramatic ooooh-noise; Murphy has already stopped laughing. Murphy is saying:

  — Hello hello

  Rebecca:

  — I’ll arrange a drink or something. So you can meet him, he’s very sweet and funny, I’m sure you’ll

  — sssss!!

  Murphy is nodding towards a well-dressed man who has swung through the plate-glass door from the street; Murphy:

  — The Christmas rush!!

  Obediently Rebecca gazes across the gallery: at the expensively empty space of Schubert & Scholes now filled by a punter, a customer, a man. The man has an air of wealth, and confidence; enough for Murphy to put on her brightest, most insincere gallery-girl smile.

  His hands on his knees, the pinstriped man begins examining a collection of enamelled Japanese household rubbish piled alongside one wall of the gallery. Quickly swivelling to her best friend, Murphy makes a ‘sorry I’d better do some work now’ expression; slipping herself off the desk Rebecca puts a fist to her tilted head and makes an ‘OK I’ll ring you tomorrow’ gesture.

  In Charlotte Street the blue sunshades are up outside Chez Gérard. A few yards further down the road couples are eating noodles outside the Vietnamese place. And on restaurant tables ranked alongside the entire facade of Pescatori Fish Restaurant big azure-glass ashtrays are glinting expensively in the sun. Walking down this, through this, all this, along her favourite London road, Rebecca feels a head-rush of happiness. She feels a sudden sense of her youngness, her freeness, her possibly-about-to-be-no-longer-singleness. She feels almost ebullient: so ebullient, she finds she is virtually skipping down to the junction of Charlotte and Percy Streets, as she heads for the Marquis of Granby pub.

  But before she reaches the Marquis of Granby pub, Rebecca clocks her watch again and realises she has walked so fast, and so ebulliently, and so nearly-skippingly, she is ten minutes early.


  So now? Assessing the sun Rebecca sees that it is still slanting brightly enough down Rathbone Place to make it worth working on her tan. Taking a corner seat at one of the wooden pub tables outside the Marquis Rebecca arranges herself: she turns and faces with closed eyes the hot sun, stretching her bare legs out. After a minute of this Rebecca opens her eyes, and sees that her legs are already the subject of some male consternation. One besuited barely-out-of-his-teens drinker is openly pointing at her. For his benefit, without making it too obvious, Rebecca raises her dress an inch or two higher; thinking of Rembrandt’s wife in the painting as she does so.

  More heads turn. A tongue actually lolls. Rebecca has never seen a tongue loll before, but there one is, lolling. At her. Not for the first time in her life, Rebecca decides she actually quite enjoys this: the sensation of masculine eyes upon her. It makes her feel like a mid-period Picasso at a glamorous auction; it makes her feel like an attractive woman. Sitting here being sizzled by the heat Rebecca starts to wonder why some art history feminists get so worked up about the male gaze. How so? Why so het up about leers and oeillades? Rebecca does not comprehend it. These staring men make Rebecca feel strong, empowered, aristocratic. To Rebecca right now these men look like so many Catholic French peasants gazing at le Roi Soleil. Dumb, resentful, awestruck serfs …

  Thinking of this, primrosing down this intellectual path, Rebecca wonders unwontedly if she can spin a thesis out of this, out of, say, the male gaze as serf-like feudal reflex. Perhaps, she decides, she could; but then, she decides, she shouldn’t. All these thoughts of matters historical, and theoretical, and thesis-esque, are in fact making Rebecca feel a simultaneous twinge of guilt. Because she isn’t working even on her present project, her Crusader thesis, hardly. At all.

  Rebecca opens her eyes, worried now. Ever since she and Patrick met, she thinks, she’s done virtually nothing towards her PhD. And this does not make Rebecca feel empowered and royal: right now this makes her feel crap, teenage, girly and feeble. God it’s so crap, Rebecca decides, pulling down her dress to hide her legs: that a mere man can come along and upend her priorities, distort her intellectual life, make nonsense of her ambitions and life goals, by not having shaved for a day or two. How gay is that?