by Sean Thomas
— OK … ok …
She snuggles nearer him; nearer, quieter, softer. Patrick notices her breasts are cold from the window downdraught. White icebox peaches …
Caring, guilty, adoring, Patrick stretches up out of the bed, reaches over to pull shut the casement, thus to stop the cool autumn rain spitting through onto her, onto his beloved. Returned to the pillow he lies down opposite this strange young Londoner, as she once again tries:
— It’s just, I just believe that inside us all there is something superb, something infinitely graceful. A shard of the hologram. You know? You see what I mean? – A silence, a silence – In all of us? Patch?
Patrick looks back at Rebecca; Rebecca is close at hand. He says:
—You do bang on a bit
—Thanks …
— But don’t you worry I still lu … – At once he stops himself; swears. A bit too brightly, Rebecca comes back:
— You still lu?
—OK
— Honestly? – She is grinning – You really really lu?
He pouts. Angrily. He’s never yet told her he lu … He doesn’t now want to say he lu; even though he was about to say he lu. So instead he says:
— Bexfuckoff
For a moment he worries this is too sharp, that she will be vexed, but she just laughs, grabs for his face, leans and kisses him. In response Patrick reaches out. He is pleased to find her right thigh still firm, smooth, well shaven. And long. Thinking about Rebecca’s longish thighs Patrick, for a second, imagines her playing tennis next summer in a white miniskirt. For a second Patrick imagines them together next summer, playing tennis together. Trying not to give in to this way of thinking, this bourgeois thought, of a long-term future together, of regular mixed doubles, Patrick asks:
—Why do you read so much about the Aztecs anyway?
— Oh, you know
— No, I don’t
Rebecca shrugs in reply, perhaps in discomfort. Slowly, she reaches over an arm, does something with a curl of his hair. Then she says:
—We’re still discovering things about each other aren’t we? Isn’t that sweet?
—Tell me you slut
— OK … – Her face goes serious – I suppose … I suppose I can’t quite seem to get a focus on what I want to do. For my thesis. What area. I sort of kind of wanted to do something about … feminism and … art history … but
— You chose the Crusades?
— Mmmm
— And now you are reading about the Aztecs?
— I know – She frowns – But … they are so totally fascinating, so enormously amazing
— Yes?
— Yes. Really – She makes an even more serious face and stares at the wall behind him – You know the Aztecs used to have a God of Haemorrhoids?
Patrick laughs, out loud. Hoping he has woken Rebecca’s father upstairs, Patrick says:
— A God of Haemorrhoids? Priceless!!
Evidently pleased to have entertained her boyfriend Rebecca starts talking keenly on her favourite-theme-of-the-moment: on Aztec mythology and its weirdness; its strange, recondite, beautiful gods. For a long time Patrick listens, genuinely interested, but then his mind wanders and he starts thinking about the God of Haemorrhoids. This makes him consider what other gods they should have, perhaps the God of Advertising Agents with a six-hundred-metre-long ponytail; perhaps the God of Euro Federalism with a swastika on both batwings; perhaps the God of Rebecca’s Breasts shaped like Rebecca’s breasts.
— C’m’ere Bex
— Wh …?
— I love it. The brainy stuff
— Yeah?
— Sometimes I find your intelligence incredibly erotic
She smiles:
— Honest? Really?
— But I still prefer your tits
She laughs. Grinning, Patrick reaches out and feels for Rebecca’s laughing legs under the duvet; he puts his hand between her soft legs, does an expert piano scale up her soft inner thigh, up to where he’s made her wet already, without really trying
— Yow – She says. He has his hand deep inside, two fingers deep inside the wetness
She is saying:
— Ouch –
and
— Mmm
and again she is looking at him expectantly, wantingly … yearningly … Do-something-else-ishly …
Patrick thinks about this. He thinks about what Rebecca wants. Then he thinks about what he wants. What he wants to do to her: the manhandling, the farmyard servicing, the rough treatment. He wonders if she would like it, or if she is too posh, too precious. Then he wonders about some poem she quoted him earlier on. The lover’s pinch that hurts and is desired …
— Ouch
She says.
— Sorry – He says.
— S’OK …
— It hurts?
— Bit … – She says – A little bit … – Her face is looking at him, her eyes are shut. Again he repeats the grace notes inside her vagina; she squirms and exhales and her words come less distinct – Just a little hit …
Later, at 4 or 5 a.m., Patrick gets up from the bed and pads to the lavatory, trying not to make too much noise. Flush, mirror, teeth, door. Back in the bed he sits up for a while and looks at Rebecca’s sleeping face. Staring at her gently snoring face he feels … weird. Too much. Looking at her sleeping form he feels something, something not relaxed, something worrying and life-altering; this he has never felt for a girl before. Patrick decides he is content to call it love for the lack of a better word … for now.
But that still leaves … There is still this something else, this something that troubles him. Her hunger. When they make love her face looks as if she is … still hungry. Still hungry. Yes, he senses her pleasure, he knows she is enjoying it, and yet. Is there some erogenous switch to flick he hasn’t found? Some abracadabra to say? Some candlestick on the Gothic mantelpiece, that when he pulls will cause the concealed door to slide?
Well …?
Giving up, for now, forgetting it, for now, Patrick turns from Rebecca’s face to the window, to the rain-teary window. Tired, fucked, groin-aching, famished, Patrick sits half up in the bed and looks out at the damp 5 a.m. streets of Hampstead Garden Suburb, the now clearing autumn night skies. Out there the wet empty streets are streaks of reflected traffic lights: red, yellow, and green. The colours remind Patrick of school dinners: red jam tart, yellow lemon curd, the green of lime icing.
— Constellations?
She has spoken. Rebecca has spoken. Naked, young, rich, and newly awake, she is pointing up from her pillow. Patrick sees she is pointing at the dark sky, through the window, and saying:
— Do you know them?
— The constellations? – He makes an affronted face – In the sky?
— Yes …
— Course I know ’em
Rebecca nods and smiles at this, and pulls herself upright. Sitting herself so that the two of them are sitting side by side, naked on the bed, she joins him in facing the big window. They both go quiet, as he looks up at the heavens and says:
— OK … That one is – Patrick narrows his eyes – Ursa Major. And that one’s … the Pleiades – He looks harder – And that, that one over there, by Betelgeuse, that’s … You Eating Five Bagels Last Night
She laughs, says:
— Oh yes and that one, that one’s Your Frankly Tiny Penis
— The one between Orion and Our First Argument?
She giggles:
—Yep
Patrick laughs. Then he squints, again, dramatically:
— But … hold on … I … I can’t see … I can’t make out … I can’t see … The First Time I Told You I Loved You
Her face is all white and pale:
—You can’t see that one? It isn’t there? Isn’t it there?
— Oh yes – He says, looking back at her, smiling broadly – There it is
9
— What? What?!
— Patr
&nbs
p; — Come on. What??
Patrick’s friends are avoiding his eye. Patrick looks at them, looks them in the eye, then looks around the pub in anger and contempt. The Magpie and Stump is full of after-hours lawyers, acquitted child molesters, off-duty policemen, young girl-solicitors, and red-eyed cons’ daughters; and Patrick feels as alone as he’s felt all day.
Patrick is drinking away the memory of the day’s hearing, Rebecca’s evidence, Rebecca’s tears. But Patrick is finding it hard: to forget how the day went is hard because everybody is so obviously trying to studiously not remind him of how the day went. His friends, his sister, Joe, they are all gathered in the pub next to the Old Bailey, the Magpie and Stump, and they are all evidently excited by the bizarre and groovy things they have heard in court this day, but whenever Patrick wanders near, whenever he drifts by, they all start chattering away about … property prices. Dishonoured, distressed, dissed, Patrick wonders if he should just go home. He can’t just go home because he really wants to get drunk, and be with people. With friends and family. And really, Patrick wonders, would he really be any different? If the situation were contrary, and he was the one in the Old Bailey gods watching a friend be tried for … say … rape … would he, Patrick, be any less ghoulish, any less ambulance chasing? Would he resist the temptation to take popcorn into the public gallery?
Patrick wonders, sighs, sluices draught Staropramen, hears Joe making jokes about Patrick’s interesting techniques for getting a blow job.
Now Patrick gets heartburn again, the heartburn he has been suffering off and on all day: engendered by the weird scenario that is his new sexual celebrity. Patrick squirms at this unwarranted celebrity. Patrick feels like he is being hyped, beyond his talent. He feels like an over-promoted stud-muffin, the Man Who Would Be King Dong.
Determinedly Patrick finishes his drink. Over his lifted glass, he observes a gang of medics and nurses come barrelling through the early evening swing of the pub door. Some of these obviously-Barts-students are dressed in fancy dress: cowboy stetsons, Viking helmets. One of the medics is wearing a mysterious blue cape with yellow plastic bananas dangling therefrom; and a yellow floppy pixy hat. The scattering of fancy-dressed medics look embarrassed that only a minority of their peers and friends have bothered to wear fancy dress this evening; except the guy in the banana coat who looks blissfully unaware. The banana man turns, and grins proudly at Patrick; Patrick wonders whether to nip back to his own flat and put on that red-and-black-striped tee shirt and that balaclava with the word RAPIST thereupon.
Grabbing his friend Nico’s empty pint glass from Nico’s semi-aware hand Patrick takes the two empty glasses through the Magpie and Stump crowds, past a nun, an attempted murderer, a paediatric oncologist, a silk, a Batman, a Kosovan-refugee dealer. Between two chic-yet-coarse office girls who smell of chewing gum, Patrick leans over and sets his pint glasses on the bar.
Twenty-pound note in his hand Patrick waits: waiting for the not-pretty bargirl to make her way down the line of laughing drinkers. As he waits Patrick sees a cute Asian girl looking at him from the other end of the bar. The girl is standing by a tall pinstriped young guy who is talking at the girl; but the girl is ignoring the guy and staring hard at Patrick. Patrick looks at the girl. The girl looks back. Slightly unnerved, Patrick looks back. The girl looks back. Then with another pang of acidy heartburn Patrick realises it is the jury member, the cute one.
The gastric ulcer, the gastric ulcer. Patrick winces, inhales, stands back, thinks hard. Patrick wonders what this girl is thinking; what she is thinking of him. He wonders if she was revolted by what she heard in court today. He wonders if she was intrigued, involved, bored. The way she is staring at him. Patrick wonders if the girl is waiting for him to do something: the blank-faced Asian girl is standing there staring like she is waiting for him to do something. Something authentic. Something excitingly in character. Something rapisty.
For a dyspeptic second Patrick wonders why he is out here, at liberty, walking the streets. How can it be right, be justified? Surely he is a threat, a danger, a walking hazard to womenfolk?
With maximal effort, Patrick suppresses this. But the girl just keeps looking over, as if she can’t help herself. Patrick conjectures how many times this girl thought of his penis today; he ponders whether she imagined herself doing it with him. Did she imagine herself being bitten and licked, being brusquely fucked, as she sat in Court Eighteen in her Principles two-piece and discreet golden nose stud? Eh, my little pakora? My little samosa of love?
— Yep? Hello? Yep?
— Yes?
— Oh, uhh
Too late. The bargirl has gone. Patrick has missed his chance. Cursing, sighing, Patrick swears at himself, then he shoulders the burden once more: leans and waits patiently. After an entire Carpenters medley from the jukebox the girl again works her way back down to where Patrick is; she nods and listens to his order, she takes and tilts the pint glasses; then gives him a smile and the pints. Carefully Patch takes up his refilled glasses, and, elbows out, tries to work his way through without spilling.
Back between his friends Patrick hands one of the cold gold pints to Nico. As he does this he notices that Nico and Joe, who were chattering away happily as he walked up, have immediately stopped chattering away. Patrick wonders if this ulcer he’s got is really gastric, or perhaps duodenal. Looking from Nico to Joe, Patrick:
— Well? What?
— Uh?
— Thanks for the pint, Patch
They say nothing more. Patrick shakes his head and clucks:
— Tell me. What were you talking about?
Joe demurs; Nico drinks silently; Patch says:
— You were talking about her, right?
Shift, sip, silence, Patch:
— Weren’t you?
— Man
Patrick snaps:
— Jesus you didn’t believe her, did you?
— Course we didn’t
— It’s just that
— Oh. Great. Cheers, mates
Joe shrugs at Patrick’s anger:
— Man it’s … Y’know … difficult …
— Why?
— See it our way. She was, you know
— What?
— Not convincing as such. More …
—Yes?
— More …
Nico joins in:
— More horny
— Yeah, she’s got better tits than you
Nico adds, giggling:
— Wouldn’t mind bending one up her
— And when she turned on the waterworks, well sexy
Joe stops. Patrick is saying:
— You are exceptionally drunk … aren’t you? Please tell me you’re outrageously pissed?
— And when you said – Joe’s eyes are shiny, his eyes are turned on Patrick and they are shiny as he tries not to laugh out loud – When you, er, allegedly … said all that … stuff about her … Jewish cunt?
Now he laughs out loud. Nico laughs too:
— Nice one, Adolf
Patrick is silent. His friends go as silent as they see how silent Patrick is. The pub jukebox is playing something Nineties again. Patrick looks at Nico; Patrick turns on Nico. Nico says, more quietly:
— It’s a joke, Patch
— C’mon, Patch youknowwhatwethink
— If we really thought you were a rapo would we be here?
Patrick exhales, disbelievingly; Joe:
— We’re just winding you up …
Patrick decides to try and not be wound up. But still. Turned now from Joe and Nico’s wry, young, drunken half smiles, Patrick lifts his own beer glass and swallows a cold quarter of a pint. Then he unmoustaches his beer-frothed lips, belches the taste of things away, eyes up the calves of a shipping clerkette. Right at the end of his beer, as Joe and Nico start arguing about Greek complicity with the Nazis, Patrick sees his solicitor Jenkins, chatting with a middle-aged woman. Jenkins and Friend are perched on brushed aluminium bar stool
s. The woman’s head is framed by an anonymous pastel painting of somewhere Cézanney; the woman is drinking a long green drink.
Accepting his fourth pint from his passing sister, Patrick threads through the drinkers to where his solicitor is drinking. Patrick is irritated to see that his solicitor looks anxious and unnerved on seeing Patrick coming over. After a quick meaningful glance at the woman the solicitor half stands, from his stool, and grasps Patrick’s extended arm. Jenkins:
— Patrick. Good to see you. Bearing up?
Patrick shrugs; Jenkins:
— Good. Just remember … These are early days
— I …
— Your pals are here? Good, that’s good
The solicitor looks warily but brightly at Patrick. Patrick pauses and thinks what to say, using the pause to look up and glance at the middle-aged woman who is looking interestedly and squarely back at Patch. As the woman and Patrick look at each other, Jenkins makes a remembering-his-manners noise and introduces the woman, says her name. Patrick forgets her name. Then Patrick burps and tilts his pint glass and looks at the solicitor’s cheap-looking white shirt and cheap-looking tie. Patrick wonders why, if his solicitor is so good and successful, he wears such cheap clothes. Patrick starts:
— So. Mister Jenkins
— Mm?
— How did you think it went?
The solicitor tilts a thinking head:
— Not too bad.
— Not too bad?
— Yes. Considering
— Considering what, Gareth??
— Everything. It was … Much as we expected. Actually – He smiles – Turned on the tears of course
— And you think all that wasn’t too bad?
— No. Not really – He smiles again – Actually, I think the school dress was a little bit of a mistake on her part
— You think they sussed that?
— Rather
— But the jury … they looked …
Jenkins wags his balding head, makes a weird clicking noise
— Perhaps. But. Early days!
Patrick closes his eyes, opens them:
— But what about all the … kinky stuff … I mean – Sensing the middle-aged woman looking at him Patrick sighs; sighing and sighing and sighing Patrick looks at the vaguely Ottoman cornicing on the wall of the otherwise stripped and white-walled and made-over City pub; and then Patrick finds his thoughts again: